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Adventure Stories for Girls 


The Secret Mark 









Printed in the United States of America 


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Copyright, 1923 
by 

The Reilly & Lee Co. 


All Rights Reserved 




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The Secret Mark 


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©C1A752363 

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CONTENTS 



(fiJ 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I A Mysterious Visitor. 7 

II Elusive Shakespeare. 19 

III The Gargoyle . 30 

IV What the Gargoyle Might 

Tell. 40 

V The Papier-Mache Lunch Box 50 

VI “One Can Never Tell”. 62 

VII The Vanishing Portland Chart 73 

VIII What Was In the Papier- 

Mache Lunch Box . 81 

IX Shadowed. 94 

X Mysteries of the Sea. 102 

XI Lucile Shares Her Secret. Ill 

XII The Trial By Fire. 121 

XIII In the Mystery Room at Night 131 

XIV A Strange Request. 138 

XV A Strange Journey. 143 

XVI Night Visitors. 155 

XVII A Battle in the Night. 166 
















Contents 


CHAPTER PAGE 

XVIII Frank Morrow Joins in the 

Hunt. 176 

XIX Lucile Solves No Mystery. 190 

XX ‘That Was the Man”. 199 

XXI A Theft in the Night. 211 

XXII Many Mysteries . 218 

XXIII Inside the Lines. 228 

XXIV Secrets Revealed . 235 

XXV Better Days ..242 










The Secret Mark 


CHAPTER I 

A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR 

Lucile Tucker’s slim, tapered fingers trem¬ 
bled slightly as she rested them against a steel¬ 
framed bookcase. She had paused to steady 
her shaken nerves, to collect her wits, to de¬ 
termine what her next move should be. 

“ Who can it be? ” her madly thumping heart 
kept asking her. 

And, indeed, who, besides herself, could be 
in the book stacks at this hour of the night? 

About her, ranging tier on tier, towering 

from floor to ceiling, were books, thousands on 

thousands of books. The two floors above were 

full of books. The two below were the same. 

This place was a perfect maze of books. It 

was one of the sections of a great library, the 

7 


8 The Secret Mark 

library of one of the finest universities of the 
United States. 

In all this vast “ city of books ” she had 
thought herself quite alone. 

It was a ghostly hour. Midnight. In the 
towers the great clock had slowly struck. Be¬ 
sides the striking of the clock there had been 
but a single sound: the click of an electric light 
snapped on. There had instantly gleamed at 
her feet a single ray of light. That light had 
traveled beneath many tiers of books to reach 
her. She thought it must be four but was not 
quite sure. 

She had been preparing to leave the “ maze/" 
as she often called the stacks of books which 
loomed all about her. So familiar was she with 
the interior of this building that she needed no 
light to guide her. To her right was a spiral 
stairway which like an auger bored its way to 
the ground four stories below. Straight ahead, 
twenty tiers of books away, was a small electric 
elevator, used only for lifting or lowering piles 
of books. Fourteen tiers back was a straight 


A Mysterious Visitor . 9 

stairway. To a person unfamiliar with it, the 
stacks presented a bewildering labyrinth, but 
to Lucile they were an open book. 

She had intended making her way back to 
the straight stairway which led to the door by 
which she must leave. But now she clutched 
at her heart as she asked herself once more: 

“ Who can it be? And what does he want? ” 

Only one thing stood out clearly in her be¬ 
wildered brain: Since she was connected with 
the stacks as one of their keepers, it was 
plainly her duty to discover who this intruder 
might be and, if occasion seemed to warrant, 
to report the case to her superiors. 

The university owned many rare and valu¬ 
able books. She had often wondered that so 
many of these were kept, not in vaults, but in 
open shelves. 

Her heart gave a new bound of terror as she 
remembered that some of these, the most valu¬ 
able of all, were at the very spot from which 
the light came. 

“Oh! Shame! Why be so foolish?” she 


10 


The Secret Mark 


whispered to herself suddenly. “ Probably 
some professor with a pass-key. Probably — 
but what’s the use? I’ve got to find out.” 

With that she began moving stealthily along 
the narrow passageway which lay between the 
stacks. Tiptoeing along, with her heart thump¬ 
ing so loudly she could not help feeling it might 
be heard, she advanced step by step until she 
stood ‘beside the end of the stack nearest the 
strange intruder. There for a few seconds she 
stuck. The last ounce of courage had oozed 
out. She must await its return. 

Then with a sudden burst of courage she 
swung round the corner. 

The next instant she was obliged to exert 
all her available energy to suppress a laugh. 
Standing in the circle of light was not some 
burly robber, but a child, a very small and in¬ 
nocent looking child. 

Yet a second glance told her that the child 
was older than she looked. Her face showed 
that. Old as the face was, the body of the 
child appeared tiny as a sparrow’s. A green 


A Mysterious Visitor 11 

velvet blouse of some strangely foreign weave, 
a coarse skirt, a pair of heavy shoes, un- 
noticeable stockings and that face — all this 
flashed into her vision for a second. Then all 
was darkness; the light had been snapped out. 

The action was so sudden and unexpected 
that for a few seconds the young librarian 
stood where she was, motionless. Wild ques¬ 
tions raced through her mind: Who was the 
child? What was she doing in the library at 
this unearthly hour? How had she gotten in? 
How did she expect to get out? 

She had a vaguely uneasy feeling that the 
child carried a package. What could that be 
other than books? A second question sud¬ 
denly disturbed her: Who was this child? 
Had she seen her before? She felt sure she 
had. But where? Where? 

All this questioning took but seconds. The 
next turn found her mind focused on the one 
important question: Which way had the child 
gone? As if in answer to her question, her 
alert ears caught, the soft pit-pat of footsteps. 


12 


The Secret Mark 


“ She’s going on to my right,” she whispered 
to herself. “ That’s good. There is no exit 
in that direction, only windows and an impos¬ 
sible drop of fifty feet. I’ll tiptoe along, throw 
on the general switch, catch her at that end 
and find out why she is here. Probably ac¬ 
cepting a dare or going through with some 
childish prank.” 

Hastily she tiptoed down the aisle between 
the stacks. Then, turning to her left, she put 
out her hand, touched a switch and released a 
flood of light. At first its brightness blinded 
her. The next instant she stared about her 
in astonishment. The place was empty. 

“ Deserted as a tomb,” she whispered. 

And so it was. Not a trace of the child was 
to be seen. 

“ As if I hadn’t seen her at all! ” she mur¬ 
mured. “ I don’t believe in ghosts, but — 
where have I seen that face before? You’d 
never forget it, once you’d seen it. And I 
have seen it. But where?” 

Meditatively she walked to the dummy ele- 


A Mysterious Visitor 13 

vator which carried books up and down. She 
started as her glance fell upon it. The carrier 
had been on this floor when she left it not 
fifteen minutes before. Now it was gone. The 
button that released it was pressed in for the 
ground floor. 

“ She couldn’t have,” she murmured. “ The 
compartment isn’t over two feet square.” 

She stared again. Then she pressed the 
button for the return of the elevator. The 
car moved silently upward to stop at her door. 
There was nothing about it to show that it 
had been used for unusual purposes. 

“ And yet she might have,” she mused. “ She 
was so tiny. She might have pressed herself 
into it and ridden down.” 

Suddenly she switched off the lights and 
hurried to a window. Did she catch a glimpse 
of a retreating figure at the far side of the 
campus? She could not be sure. The lights 
were flickering, uncertain. 

“ Well,” she shook herself, then shivered, “ I 
guess that’s about all of that. Ought to report 


14 


The Secret Mark 


it, but I won’t. .They’d only laugh at me.” 

Again she shivered, then turning, tiptoed 
down the narrow passageway to carry out her 
original intention of going out of the building 
by way of the back stairs. 

Her room was only a half block away in 
a dormitory on the corner of the campus 
nearest the library. Having reached the dormi¬ 
tory, she went to her room and began dis¬ 
robing for the night. In the bed near her own, 
wrapped in profound sleep, lay her roommate. 
She wished to waken her, to tell her of the 
strange event of the night. For a moment she 
stood with the name “ Florence ” quivering on 
her lips. 

The word died unspoken. “ No use to trou¬ 
ble her,” she decided. “ She’s been working 
hard lately and needs the sleep.” 

At last, clad in her dream robes, with her 
abundant hair streaming down her back and 
her white arms gleaming in the moonlight, she 
sat down by the open window to think and 
dream. 


A Mysterious Visitor 15 

It was a wonderful picture that lay spread 
out before her, a vista of magnificent Gothic 
structures of gray sandstone framed in lawns 
of perfectly kept green. Sidewalks wound 
here, there, everywhere. Swarming with stu¬ 
dents during the waking hours, they were silent 
now. Her bosom swelled with a strange, in¬ 
expressible emotion as she realized that she, a 
mere girl, was a part of it all. 

Like her roommate, she was one of the thou¬ 
sands of girls who to-day attend the splendid 
universities of our land. With little money, of 
humble parentage, they are yet given an op¬ 
portunity to make their way toward a higher 

r 

and broader understanding of the meaning of 
life through study in the university. 

The thought that this university was pos¬ 
sessed of fifty millions of dollars’ worth of 
property, yet had time and patience to make a 
place for her, both awed and inspired her. 

The very thought of her position sobered 
her. Four hours each week day she worked in 
the stacks at the library. Books that had been 


16 


The Secret Mark 


read and returned came down to her and by her 
hands were placed in their particular niches of 
the labyrinth of stacks. 

The work was not work to her but recreation, 
play. She was a lover of books. Just to touch 
them was a delight. To handle them, to work 
with them, to keep them in their places, ac¬ 
cessible to all, this was joy indeed. Yet this 
work, which was play to her, went far toward 
paying her way in the university. 

And at this thought her brow clouded. She 
recalled once more the occurrence of a short 
time before and the strange little face among 
the stacks. She knew that she ought to tell 
the head of her section of the library, Mr. 
Downers, of the incident. Should anything 
happen, should some book be missing, she would 
then be free from suspicion. Should suspicion 
fall upon her, she might be deprived of her 
position and, from lack of funds, be obliged 
to give up her cherished dream, a university 
education. 

“ But I don’t want to tell,” she whispered to 



17 


A Mysterious Visitor 

the library tower which, like some kindly, long- 
bearded old gentleman, seemed to be accusing 
her. “ I don’t want to.” 

Hardly had she said this than she realized 
that there was a stronger reason than her fear 
of derision that held her back from telling. 

“ It’s the face,” she told herself. “ That 
poor little kiddie’s face. It wasn’t beautiful, 

no, not quite that, but appealing, frankly, fear- 

/ 

lessly appealing. If I saw her take a book I 
couldn’t believe that she meant to steal it, or 
at least that it was she who willed it. 

“ But fi-fum,” she laughed a low laugh, throw¬ 
ing back her head until her hair danced over 
her white shoulders like a golden shower, “ why 
borrow trouble? She probably took nothing. 
It was but a childish prank.” 

At that she threw back the covers of her bed, 
thrust her feet deep down beneath them and 
lay down to rest. To-morrow was Sunday; no 
work, no study. There would be plenty of 
time to think. 

She believed that she had dismissed the scene 


18 


The Secret Mark 


in the library from her mind, yet even as she 
fell asleep something seemed to tell her that 
she was mistaken, that the child had really 
stolen a book, that there were breakers ahead. 

And that something whispered truth, for this 
little incident was but the beginning of a series 
of adventures such as a college girl seldom is 
called upon to experience. Being ignorant of 
all this, she fell asleep to dream sweet dreams 
while the moon out of a cloudless sky, beaming 
down upon the faultless campus, seemed at 
times to take one look in at her open window. 


CHAPTER II 


ELUSIVE SHAKESPEARE 

The sun had been up for more than an hour 
when on the following morning Lucile lifted 
her head sleepily and looked at the clock. 

“ Sunday morning. I’m glad!” she ex¬ 
claimed as she leaped out of bed and raced away 
for a cold shower. 

As she dressed she experienced a sensation of 
something unfinished and at the same time a 
desire to hide something, to defend someone. 
At first she could not understand what it all 
meant. Then, like a flash, the occurrence of 
the previous night flashed upon her. 

“ Oh, that,” she breathed. 

She was surprised to find that her desire to 
shield the child had gained tremendously in 
strength while she slept. Perhaps there are 
forces we know nothing of, which work on the 

19 


20 


The Secret Mark 


inner, hidden chambers of our mind while we 
sleep, and having worked there, leave impres¬ 
sions which determine our very destinies. 

Lucile was not enough of a philosopher to 
reason this all out. She merely knew that she 
did not want to tell anyone of the strange inci¬ 
dent, no not even her roommate. And in the 
end that was just what happened. She told 
no one. 

When she went back to her work on Monday 
night a whole busy day had passed in the li¬ 
brary. Thousands of books had shot up the 
dummy elevator to have their cards stamped 
and to be given out. Thousands had been re¬ 
turned to their places on their shelves. Was 
a single book missing? Were two or three 
missing? Lucile had no way of knowing. 
Every book that had gone out had been re¬ 
corded, but to look over these records, then 
to check back and see if others were missing, 
would be the work of weeks. She could only 
await developments. 

She was surprised at the speed with which 


Elusive Shakespeare 21 

these developments came. Mr. Downers, the 
superintendent, was noted for his exact knowl¬ 
edge regarding the whereabouts of the books 
which were under his care. She had not been 
working an hour when a quiet voice spoke to 
her and with a little start she turned to face 
her superior. 

“ Miss Tucker,” the librarian smiled, “ do 
you chance to have any knowledge of the where¬ 
abouts of the first volume of our early edition 
of Shakespeare?” 

“ Why, no,” the girl replied quickly. “ Why 
‘— er ” — there was a catch in her throat — 
“is it gone?” 

Mr. Downers nodded as he replied: 

“ Seems temporarily so to be. Misplaced, no 
doubt. Will show up later.” He was still smil¬ 
ing but there were wrinkles in his usually placid 
brow. 

“ I missed it just now,” he went on. 
“ Strange, too. I saw it there only Saturday. 
The set was to be removed from the library to 
be placed in the Noyes museum. Considered 


22 


The Secret Mark 


too valuable to be kept in the library. Very 
early edition, you know. 

“ Strange! ” he puzzled. “ It could not have 
been taken out on the car, as it was used only 
in the reference reading room. It’s not there. 
I just phoned. However, it will turn up. Don’t 
worry about it.” 

He turned on his heel and was gone. 

Lucile stared after him. She wanted to call 
him back, to tell him that it was not all right, 
that it would not turn up, that the strangely 
quaint little person she had seen in the library 
at midnight had carried it away. Yet she said 
not a word; merely allowed him to pass away. 
It was as if there was a hand over her mouth 
forbidding her to speak. 

“ There can’t be a bit of doubt about it,” 
she told herself. “ That girl was standing right 
by the shelf where the ancient Shakespeare was 
kept. She took it. I wonder why? I wonder 
if she’ll come back. Why, of course she will! 
For the other volume, or to return the one she 
has. Perhaps to-night. Two volumes were too 


t 


Elusive Shakespeare 23 

heavy for those slim shoulders. She’ll come 
back and then she shan't escape me. I’ll catch 
her in the act. Then I’ll find out the reason 
why.” 

So great was her faith in this bit of reason¬ 
ing that she resolved that, without telling a 
single person about the affair, she would set 
a watch that very night for the mysterious 
child and the elusive Shakespeare. She must 
solve the puzzle. 

That night as she sat in the darkened li¬ 
brary, listening, waiting, she allowed her mind 
to recall in a dim and dreamy way the face and 
form of the mysterious child. As she dreamed 
thus there suddenly flashed into the foreground 
from the deepest depths of her memory the 
time and circumstance on which she had first 
seen that child. She saw it all as in a dream. 
The girl had been dressed just as she was Sat¬ 
urday at midnight. She had entered the stacks. 
That had been a month before. She had ap¬ 
peared leading an exceedingly old man. Bent 
with the weight of years, leaning upon a cane, 


24 


The Secret Mark 


all but blind, the old man had moved with a 
strangely youthful eagerness. 

He had been allowed to enter the stacks only 

a? 

by special request. He was an aged French¬ 
man, a lover of books. He wished to come near 
the books, to sense them, to see them with his 
age-dimmed eyes, to touch them with his falter¬ 
ing hands. 

So the little girl had guided him forward. 
From time to time he had asked that he be 
allowed to handle certain volumes. He had 
touched each with a reverent hand. His touch 
had resembled a caress. Some few he had 
opened and had felt along the covers. 

“ I wonder why he did that,” Lucile had 
thought to herself. 

She paused. A sudden thought had flashed 
into her mind. At the risk of missing her 
quarry, she groped her way to the shelf where 
the companion to the stolen volume lay and 
took it down. Slowly she ran her fingers over 
the inner part of the cover. 

“ Yes,” she whispered, “ there is something.” 


Elusive Shakespeare 25 

She dared not flash on the light. To do so 
might betray her presence in the building. To¬ 
morrow she would see. Replacing the volume 
in its accustomed niche, she again tiptoed to 
her post of waiting. 

As she thought of it now, she began to realize 
what a large part her unconscious memory had 
played in her longing to shield the child. She 
had seen the child render a service to a feeble 
and all but helpless old man. Her memory had 
been trying to tell her of this but had only now 
broken through into her wakeful mind. Lucile 
was aroused by the thought. 

“ I must save her,” she told herself. “ I 
must. I must! ” 

Even with this resolve came a perplexing 
problem. Why had the child taken the book? 
Had she done so at the old man’s direction? 
That seemed incredible. Could an old man, 
tottering to his grave, revealing in spite of his 
shabby clothing a one-time more than common 
intellect and a breeding above the average, 
stoop to theft, the theft of a book? And could 


26 


The Secret Mark 


he, above all, induce an innocent child to join 
him in the deed? It was unthinkable. 

i 

“ That man,” she thought to herself, “ why 
he had a noble bearing, like a soldier, almost, 
certainly like a gentleman. He reminded me of 
that great old general of his own nation who 
said to his men when the enemy were all but 
upon Paris: ‘ They must not pass.' Could he 
stoop to stealing? ,, 

These problems remained all unsolved, for on 
that night no slightest footfall was heard in the 
silent labyrinth. 

The next night was the same, and the next. 
Lucile was growing weary, hollow-eyed with 
her vigil. She had told Florence nothing, yet 
she had surprised her roommate often looking 
at her in a way which said, “ Why are you out 
so late every night? Why don’t you share 
things with your pal?” 

And she wanted to, but something held her 
back. 

Thursday night came with a raging torrent 

y 

of rain. It was not her night at the library. 


Elusive Shakespeare 27 

She would gladly have remained in her cozy 
room, wrapped in a kimono, studying, yet, as 
the chimes pealed out the notes of Auld Lang 
Syne, telling that the hour of ten had arrived, 
she hurried into her rubbers and ulster to face 
the tempest. 

Wild streaks of lightning faced her at the 
threshold. A gust of wind seized her and hur¬ 
ried her along for an instant, then in a wild, 
freakish turn all but threw her upon the pave¬ 
ment. A deluge of rain, seeming to extinguish 
the very street light, beat down upon her. 

“ How foolish I am! ” she muttered. “ She 
would not come on a night like this.” 

And yet she did come. Lucile had not been 
in her hiding place more than a half hour when 
she caught the familiar pit-pat of footsteps. 

“ This time she shall not escape me,” she 
whispered, as with bated breath and cushioned 
footstep she tiptoed toward the spot where the 
remaining Shakespeare rested. 

Now she was three stacks away. As she 
paused to listen she knew the child was at the 


28 


The Secret Mark 


same distance in the opposite direction. She 
moved one stack nearer, then listened again. 

She heard nothing. What had happened? 
— the child had paused. Had she heard? Lu- 
cile’s first impulse was to snap on a light. She 
hesitated and in hesitating lost. 

There came a sudden glare of light. A 
child’s face was framed in it, a puzzled, fright¬ 
ened face. A slender hand went out and up. A 
book came down. The light went out. And all 
this happened with such incredible speed that 
Lucile stood glued to her tracks through it all. 

She leaped toward the dummy elevator, only 
to hear the faint click which told that it was 
descending. She could not stop it. The child 
was gone. 

She dashed to a window which was on the 
elevated station side. A few seconds of waiting 
and the lightning rewarded her. In the midst 
of a blinding flash, she caught sight of a tiny 
figure crossing a broad stretch of rain-soaked 
green. 

The next instant, with rubbers in one hand 


Elusive Shakespeare 29 

and ulster in the other, she dashed down the 
stairs. 

“ I’ll get her yet,” she breathed. “ She be¬ 
longs down town. She’ll take the elevated. 
There is a car in seven minutes. FU make it, 
too. Then we shall see.” 


/ 


CHAPTER III 
THE GARGOYLE 

Down a long stretch of sidewalk, across a 
sunken patch of green where the water was to 
her ankles, down a rain-drenched street, through 
pools of black water where sewers were choked, 
Lucile dashed. With no thought for health or 
safety she exposed herself to the blinding 
tempest and dashed before skidding autos, to 
arrive at last panting at the foot of the rusted 
iron stairs that led to the elevated railway 
platform. 

Pausing only long enough to catch her 
breath and arrange her garments that the child 
might not be frightened away by her appear¬ 
ance, she hurried up the stairs. The train came 
thundering in. There was just time to thrust 
a dime through the wicker window and to bound 
for the door. 


30 


31 


The Gargoyle 

Catching a fleeting glimpse of the dripping 
figure of the child, she made a dash for that 
car and made it. A moment later, with her 
ulster thrown over on the seat beside her, she 
found herself facing the child. 

Sitting there curled up in a corner, as she 
now was, hugging a bulky package wrapped 
in oilcloth, the child seemed older and tinier 
than ever. 

“ How could she do it?” was Lucile’s un¬ 
spoken question as she watched the water ooz¬ 
ing from her shoes to drip-drip to the floor 
below. With the question came a blind resolve 
to see the thing through to the end. This child 
was not the real culprit. Cost what it might, 
she would find who was behind her strange 
actions. 

There is no place in all the world where a 
thunderstorm seems more terrible than in the 
deserted streets in the heart of a great city at 
night. Echoing and re-echoing between the 
towering walls of buildings, the thunder seems 
to be speaking to the universe. Flashing from 


32 


The Secret Mark 


a thousand windows to ten thousand others, the 
lightning seems to be searching the haunts and 
homes of men. The whole wild fury of it 
seems but the voice of nature defying man in 
his great stronghold, the city. It is as if in 
thundering tones she would tell him that great 
as he may imagine himself, he is not a law unto 
himself and can never be. 

Into the heart of a great city on a night like 
this the elevated train carried Lucile and the 
child. 

On the face of the child, thief as she un¬ 
doubtedly was, and with the stolen goods in 
her possession, there flashed not one tremor, not 
a falling of an eyelash, which might be thought 
of as a sign of fear of laws of nature, man or 
God. Was she hardened or completely inno¬ 
cent of guilt? Who at that moment could tell? 

It would be hard to imagine a more desolate 
spot than that in which the car discharged its 
two passengers. As Lucile’s eye saw the sea of 

dreary, water-soaked tenements and tumble- 

\ 

down cottages that, like cattle left out in the 


33 


The Gargoyle 

storm, hovered beside the elevated tracks, she 
shivered and was tempted to turn back — yet 
she went on. 

A half block from the station she passed a 
policeman. Again she hesitated. The child 
was but a half block before her. She suspected 
nothing. It would be so easy to say to the 
policeman, “ Stop that child. She is a thief. 
She has stolen property concealed beneath her 
cape.” The law would then take its course and 
Lucile’s hands would be free. 

Yet something urged her past the policeman, 
down a narrow street, round a corner, up a 
second street, down a third, still narrower, and 
up to the door of the smallest, shabbiest cottage 
of the whole tumble-down lot. 

The child had entered here. Lucile paused 
to consider and, while considering, caught the 
gleam of light through a torn window shade. 
The cottage was one story and a garret. The 
window was within her range of vision. After 
a glance from left to right, she stepped be¬ 
neath the porch, which gave her an opportunity 


34 


The Secret Mark 


to peer through the opening. Here, deep in the 
shadows, she might look on at the scene within 
without herself being observed by those within 
or by passers-by on the street. 

The picture which came to her through the 
hole in the shade was so different from that 
which one might expect that she barely sup¬ 
pressed a gasp. In the room, which was 
scrupulously clean and tidy, there were but two 
persons, the child and the old man who had 
visited the library. Through the grate of a 
small stove a fire gleamed. Before this fire, 
all unabashed, the child stripped the water- 
soaked clothing from her meager body, then 
stood chafing her limbs, which were purple with 
cold. 

The old man appeared all absorbed in his 
inspection of the book just placed in his hands. 
Lucile was not surprised to recognize it as the 
second Shakespeare. From turning it over and 
over, he paused to open it and peer at its inside 
cover. Not satisfied with this, he ran his finger 
over the upper, outside corner. 


The Gargoyle 35 

It was then that Lucile saw for the first time 
the thing she had felt while in the library in the 
dark. A small square of paper, yellow with 
age, was in that corner, and in its center was 
a picture of a gargoyle. A strange looking crea¬ 
tion was this gargoyle. It was with such as 
these the ancients were wont to decorate their 
mansions. With a savage face that was half 
man and half lion, he possessed the paws of 
a beast and the wings of a great bird. About 
two sides of this picture was a letter L. 

“ So that was it,” she breathed. 

The next moment her attention was attracted 
by a set of shelves. These ran across one entire 
end of the room and, save for a single foot of 
space, were entirely filled with books. The 
striking fact to be noted was that, if one were 
able to judge from the appearance of their 
books, they must all of them be of great age. 

“A miser of books,” she breathed. 

Searching these shelves, she felt sure she 
located the other missing volume of Shakes¬ 
peare. This decision was confirmed at last as 


36 


The Secret Mark 


the tottering old man made his way to the shelf 
and filled some two inches of the remaining 
vacant shelf-space by placing the newly-acquired 
book beside its mate. 

After this he stood there for a moment look¬ 
ing at the two books. The expression on his 
face was startling. In the twinkling of an eye, 
it appeared to prove her charge of book miser 
to be false. This was not the look of a Shylock. 

“ More like a father glorying over the return 
of a long-lost child,” she told herself. 

As she stood there puzzling over this, the 
room went suddenly dark. The occupants of 
the house had doubtless gone to another part 
of the cottage to retire for the night. She was 
left with two alternatives: to call a policeman 
and have the place raided or to return quietly 
to the university and think the thing through. 
She chose the latter course. 

After discovering the number of the house 
and fixing certain landmarks in her mind, she 
returned to the elevated station. 

“ They’ll not dispose of the books, that’s cer- 


The Gargoyle 3 7 X 

tain,” she told herself. “The course to be 
taken in the future will come to me.” 

Stealing silently into her room on her return, 
she was surprised to find her roommate awake, 
robed in a kimono and pacing the floor. 

“ Why, Florence! ” she breathed. 

“ Why, yourself! ” Florence turned upon her. 
“ Where’ve you been in all this storm? Five 
minutes more and I should have called the ma¬ 
tron. She would have notified the police and 
then things would have been fine. Grand! Can 
you see it in the morning papers? 6 Beautiful 
co-ed mysteriously disappears from university 
dormitory in storm. No trace of her yet found. 
Roommate says no cause for suicide/ ” 

“ Oh! ” gasped Lucile, “ you wouldn’t have! ” 
“ What else could I do ? How was I to 
know what had happened? You hadn’t breathed 
a word. You — ” 

Florence sat down upon her bed, dug her 
bare toes into the rug and stared at her room¬ 
mate. For once in her life, strong, dependable, 
imperturbable Florence was excited. 


38 


The Secret Mark 


“ I know,” said Lucile, removing her water- 
soaked dress and stockings and chafing her be¬ 
numbed feet. “I — I guess I should -have told 
you about it, but it was something I *was quite 
sure you wouldn’t understand, so I didn’t, that’s 
all. But now — now I’ve got to tell someone 
or I’ll burst, and I’d rather tell you than any¬ 
one else I know.” 

“ Thanks,” Florence smiled. “ Just for that 
I’ll help you into dry clothes, then you can tell 
me in comfort.” 

The clock struck three and the girls were 
still deep in the discussion of the mystery. 

“ One thing is important,” said Florence. 
“ That is the value of the Shakespeare. Per¬ 
haps it’s not worth so terribly much after all.” 

“ Perhaps not,” Lucile wrinkled her brow, 
“ but I am awfully afraid it is. Let’s see — 
who could tell me? Oh, I know — Frank Mor¬ 
row ! ” 

“ Who’s Frank Morrow?” 

“ He’s the best authoritv on old books there 
is in the United States to-day. He’s right here 


The Gargoyle 39 

in this city. Got a cute little shop on the fif¬ 
teenth floor of the Marshal Annex building. 
He’s an old friend of my father. He’ll tell me 
anything I need to know about books.” 

“ All right, you’d better see him to-morrow, 
or I mean to-day. And now for three winks.” 

Florence threw off her kimono and leaped 
into bed. Lucile followed her example and the 
next instant the room was dark. 




/ 

CHAPTER IV 

WHAT THE GARGOYLE MIGHT TELL 

Frank Morrow was the type of man any girl 
might be glad to claim as a friend. He had 
passed his sixty-fifth birthday and for thirty- 
five years he had been a dealer in old books, yet 
he was neither stooped nor near-sighted. A 
man of broad shoulders and robust frame, he 
delighted as much in a low morning score at 
golf as he did in the discovery of a rare old 
book. His hair was white but his cheeks re¬ 
tained much of their ruddy glow. His quiet 
smile gave to all who visited his shop a feeling 
of genuine welcome which they did not soon 
forget. 

His shop, like himself, reflected the new era 
which has dawned in the old book business. 
Men have come to realize that age lends worth 
to books that possessed real worth in the be- 

40 


41 


What the Gargoyle Might Tell 

ginning and they are coming to house them well. 
On one of the upper floors of a modern busi¬ 
ness block Frank Morrow's shop was flooded 
with sunshine and fresh air. A potted plant 
bloomed on his desk. The books, arranged 
neatly without a painful effort at order, pre¬ 
sented the appearance of some rich gentleman's 
library. A darker corner, a room by itself, to 
the right and back, suggested privacy and se¬ 
clusion and here Frank Morrow's finds were 
kept. Many of them were richly bound and 
autographed. 

The wise and the rich of the world passed 
through Frank Morrow's shop, for in his brain 
there rested knowledge 'which no other living 
man could impart. Did a bishop wish to pur¬ 
chase an out-of-print book for his ecclesiastical 
library, he came to Frank Morrow to ask where 
it might be found. Did the prince of the steel 
market wish a folio edition of Audubon’s 
“ Birds of America"? He came to Frank and 
somewhere, in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, 
Frank found it for him. Authors came to him 


42 


The Secret Mark 


and artists as well, not so much for what he 
could find for them as for what he might im¬ 
part in the way of genial friendship and the 
lore of books. 

It was to this man and this shop that Lucile 
made her way next morning. She was not pre¬ 
pared to confide in him to the extent of telling 
him the whole story of her mystery, for she 
did not know him well. He was her father’s 
friend, that was all. She did wish to tell him 
that she was in trouble and to ask his opinion 
of the probable value of the set of Shakespeare 
which had been removed from the university 
library. 

“ Well, now,” he smiled as he adjusted his 
glasses after she had asked her question, “ I’ll 
be glad to help you if I can, but I’m not sure 
that I can. There are Shakespeares and other 
Shakespeares. I don’t know the university set 
— didn’t buy it for them. Probably a donation 
from some rich man. It might be a folio edi¬ 
tion. In that case — well ” — he paused and 
smiled again — “ I trust you haven’t burned 


What the Gargoyle Might Tell 43 

this Shakespeare by mistake nor had it stolen 
from your room or anything like that?” 

“No! Oh, no! Not — nothing like that!” 
exclaimed Lucile. 

“ Well, as I was about to say, I found a very 
nice folio edition for a rich friend of mine not 
so very long ago. The sale of it I think was 
the record for this city. It cost him eighteen 
thousand dollars.” 

Lucile gasped, then sat staring at him in 
astonishment. 

“ Eighteen thousand dollars! ” she managed 
to murmur at last. 

“ Of course vou understand that was a folio 
edition, very rare. There are other old editions 
that are cheaper, much cheaper.” 

“I — I hope so,” murmured Lucile. 

“ Would you like to see some old books and 
get a notion of their value?” he asked. 

“ Indeed I would.” 

“ Step in here.” He led the way into the 
mysterious dark room. There he switched on 
a light to reveal walls packed with books. 


44 


The Secret Mark 


“ Here’s a little thing,” he smiled, taking 
down a volume which would fit comfortably 
into a man’s coat pocket; “ Walton’s Compleat 
Angler. It’s a first edition. Bound in temporary 
binding, vellum. What would you say it was 
worth? ” 

“I — I couldn’t guess. Please don’t make 
me,” Lucile pleaded. 

“ Sixteen hundred dollars.” 

Again Lucile stared at him in astonishment. 
“ That little book!” 

“ You see,” he said, motioning her a seat, 
“ rare books, like many other rare things, derive 
their value from their scarcity. The first edi¬ 
tion of this book was very small. Being small 
and comparatively cheap, the larger number of 
the books were worn out, destroyed or lost. So 
the remaining books have come to possess great 
value. The story — ” 

He came to an abrupt pause, arrested by a 
look of astonishment on the girl’s face, as she 
gazed at the book he held. 

“ Why, what — ” he began. 


What the Gargoyle Might Tell 45 

“ That,” Lucile pointed to a raised monogram 
in the upper inside cover of the book. 

“ A private mark,” explained Morrow. 
“Many rich men and men of noble birth in the 
past had private marks which they put in their 
books. The custom seems to be as old as books 
themselves. Men do it still. Let's see, what is 
that one? ” 

“ An embossed ‘ L 9 around two sides of the 
picture of a gargoyle,” said Lucile in as steady 
a tone as she could command. 

“ Ah! yes, a very unusual one. In all my 
experience I have seen but five books with that 
mark in them. All have passed through my 
hands during the past two years. And yet this 
mark is a very old one. See how yellow the 
paper is. Probably some foreign library. Many 
rare books came across the sea during the war. 
I believe — 99 

He paused to reflect, then said with a tone 
of certainty, “ Yes, I know that mark was in 
the folio edition of Shakespeare which I sold 
last year.” 


46 


The Secret Mark 


His words caught Lucile’s breath. For the 
moment she could neither move nor speak. 
The thought that the set of Shakespeare taken 
from the library might be the very set sold 
to the rich man, and worth eighteen thousand 
dollars, struck her dumb. 

Fortunately the dealer did not notice her dis¬ 
tress but pointing to the bookmark went on: 
“ If that gargoyle could talk now, if it could 
tell its story and the story of the book it marks, 
what a yarn it might spin. 

“ For instance,” his eyes half closed as the 
theme gripped him, “this mark is unmistakably 
continental — French or German. French, Fd 
say, from the form of the ‘ L* and the type 
of gargoyle. Many men of wealth and of noble 
birth on the continent have had large collections 
of books printed in English. This little book 
with the gargoyle on the inside of its cover is 
a hundred years old. It’s a young book as 
ancient books go, yet what things have hap¬ 
pened in its day. It has seen wars and blood¬ 
shed. The library in which it has reposed may 


What the Gargoyle Might Tell 47 

have been the plotting place of kings, knights 
and dukes or of rebels and regicides. 

“ It may have witnessed domestic tragedies. 
What great man may have contemplated the 
destruction of his wife? What noble lady may 
have whispered in its presence of some secret 
love ? What youths and maids may have slipped 
away into its quiet corner to utter murmurs 
of eternal devotion? 

“ It may have been stolen, been carried away 
as booty in war, been pawned with its mates to 
secure a nobleman’s ransom. 

“ Oh, I tell you,” he smiled as he read the 
interest in her face, “ there is romance in old 
books, thrilling romance. Whole libraries hav& 
been stolen and secretly disposed of. Chests of 
books have been captured by pirates. 

“ Here is a book, a copy of Marco PoloT 
travels, a first edition copy which, tradition telb* 
us, was once owned by the renowned pirate, 
Captain Kidd. I am told he was fond of read¬ 
ing. However that may be, there certainly were 
men of learning among his crew. There never 


48 


The Secret Mark 


was a successful gang of thieves that did not 
have at least one college man in it.” 

He chuckled at his own witticism and Lucile 
smiled with him. 

“ Well,” he said rising, “ if there is anything 
I can do for you at any time, drop in and ask 
me. I am always at the service of fair young 
ladies. One never grows too old for that; be¬ 
sides, your father was my very good friend.” 

Lucile thanked him, took a last look at the 
pocket volume worth sixteen hundred dollars, 
made a mental note of the form of its gargoyle, 
then handed it to him and left the room. She 
little dreamed how soon and under what strange 
circumstances she would see that book again. 

She left the shop of Frank Morrow in a 
strange state of mind. She felt that she should 
turn the facts in her possession over to the offi¬ 
cials of the library and allow them to deal with 
the child and the old man. Yet there was some¬ 
thing mysterious about it all. That collector of 
books, doubtless worth a fortune, in surround¬ 
ings which betokened poverty, the strange book 


What the Gargoyle Might Tell 49 

mark, the look on the old man’s face as he 
fingered the volume of Shakespeare, how ex¬ 
plain all these? If the university authorities or 
the police handled the case, would they take 
time to solve these mysteries, to handle the case 
in such a way as would not hasten the death 
of this feeble old man nor blight the future of 
this strange child? She feared not. 

“ Life, the life of a child, is of greater im¬ 
portance than is an ancient volume,” she told 
herself at last. “ And with the help of Florence 
and perhaps of Frank Morrow I will solve the 
mystery myself. Yes, even if it costs me my 
position and my hope for an education!” She 
paused to stamp the pavement, then hurried 
away toward the university. 


CHAPTER V 


THE PAPIER-MACHE LUNCH BOX 

“ But, Lucile! ” exclaimed Florence after she 
had heard the latest development in the mys¬ 
tery. “If the books are worth all that money, 
how dare you take the risk of leaving things as 
they are for a single hour?” 

“ We don’t know that they are that identical 
edition.” 

“ But you say the gargoyle was there.” 

“ Yes, but that doesn’t prove anything. 
There might have been a whole family of gar¬ 
goyle libraries for all we know. Besides, what 
if it is? What are two books compared to the 
marring of a human life? What right has a 
university, or anyone else for that matter, to 
have books worth thousands of dollars? Books 
are just tools or playthings. That’s all they 

50 


51 


The Papier-mache Lunch Box 

are. Men use them to shape their intellects 
just as a carpenter uses a plane, or they use 
them for amusement. What would be the sense 
of having a wood plane worth eighteen thousand 
dollars when a five dollar one would do just as 
good work? ” 

“But what do you mean to do about it?” 
asked Florence. 

“ I’m going down there by that mysterious 
cottage and watch what happens to-night and 
you are going with me. We’ll go as many 
nights as we have to. If it’s necessary we’ll 
walk in upon our mysterious friends and make 
them tell why they took the books. Maybe 
they won’t tell but they’ll give them back to us 
and unless I’m mistaken that will at least be 
better for the girl than dragging her into court.” 

“ Oh, all right,” laughed Florence, rising and 
throwing back her shoulders. “ I suppose you’re 
taking me along as a sort of bodyguard. I 
don’t mind. Life’s been a trifle dull of late. 
A little adventure won’t go so bad and since it 
is endured in what you choose to consider a 


52 


The Secret Mark 


righteous cause, it’s all the better. But please 
let’s make it short. I do love to sleep.” 

Had she known what the nature of their ad¬ 
venture was to be, she might at least have 
paused to consider, but since the things we 
don’t know don’t hurt us, she set to work plan¬ 
ning this, their first nightly escapade. 

Reared as they had been in the far West 
and the great white North, the two girls had 
been accustomed to wildernesses of mountains, 
forest and vast expanses of ice and snow. 
One might fancy that for them, even at night, 
a great city would possess no terrors. This was 
not true. The quiet life at the university, eight 
miles from the heart of the city, had done 
little to rid them of their terror of city streets 
at night. To them every street was a canyon, 
the end of each alley an entrance to a den where 
beasts of prey might lurk. Not a footfall 
sounded behind them but sent terror to their 
hearts. 

Lucile had gone on that first adventure alone 
in the rain on sudden impulse. The second was 


53 


The Papier-mache Lunch Box 

premeditated. They coolly plotted the return to 
the narrow street where the mysterious cottage 
stood. Nothing short of a desire to serve some¬ 
one younger and weaker than herself could have 
induced Lucile to return to that region, the very 
thought of which sent a cold shiver running 
down her spine. 

As for Florence, she was a devoted chum of 
Lucile. It was enough that Lucile wished her 
to go. Other interests might develop later; for 
the present, this was enough. 

So, on the following night, a night dark and 
cloudy but with no rain, they stole forth from 
the hall to make their way down town. 

They had decided that they would go to the 
window of the torn shade and see what they 
might discover, but, on arriving at the scene, 
decided that there was too much chance of 
detection. 

“ We’ll just walk up and down the street,” 
suggested Lucile. “ If she comes out we’ll fol¬ 
low her and see what happens. She may go 
back to the university for more books.” 


54 


The Secret Mark 


“ You don’t think she’d dare?” whispered 
Florence. 

“ She returned once, why not again?” 

“ There are no more Shakespeares.” 

“ But there are other books.” 

“ Yes.” 

They fell into silence. The streets were dark. 
It grew cold. It was a cheerless task. Now 
and again a person passed them. Two of them 
were men, noisy and drunken. 

“ I — I don’t like it,” shivered Lucile, “ but 
what else is there to do? ” 

“ Go in and tell them they have our books 
and must give them up.” 

“ That wouldn’t solve anything.” 

“ It would get our books back.” 

“ Yes, but — ” 

Suddenly Lucile paused, to place a hand on 
her companion’s arm. A slight figure had 
emerged from the cottage. 

“ It’s the child,” she whispered. “ We must 
not seem to follow. Let’s cross the street.” 

They expected the child to enter the elevated 


55 


The Papier-mache Lunch Box 

station as she had done before, but this she did 
not do. Walking at a rapid pace, she led them 
directly toward the very heart of the city. After 
covering five blocks, she began to slow down. 

“ Getting tired,” was Florence’s comment. 
“ More people here. We could catch up with 
her and not be suspected.” 

This they did. Much to their surprise, they 
found the child dressed in the cheap blue calico 
of a working woman’s daughter. 

“ What’s that for?” whispered Lucile. 

“ Disguise,” Florence whispered. “ She’s go¬ 
ing into some office building. See, she is carry¬ 
ing a pressed paper lunch box. She’ll get in 
anywhere with that: just tell them she’s bring¬ 
ing a hot midnight lunch to her mother. 

“ It’s strange,” she mused, “ when you think 
of it, how many people work while we sleep. 
Every morning hundreds of thousands of peo¬ 
ple swarm to their work or their shopping in 
the heart of the city and they find all the carpets 
swept, desks and tables dusted, floors and stairs 
scrubbed, and I’ll bet that not one in a hundred 


56 


The Secret Mark 


of them ever pauses to wonder how it all comes 
about. Not one in a thousand gives a passing 
thought to the poor women who toil on hands 
and knees with rag and brush during the dark 
hours of night that everything may be spick and 
span in the morning. I tell you, Lucile, we 
ought to be thankful that we’re young and that 
opportunities lie before us. I tell you — ” 

She was stopped by a grip on her arm. 

“ Wha — where has she gone?” stammered 
Lucille. 

“ She vanished! ” 

“ And she was not twenty feet before us a 
second ago.” 

The two girls stood staring at each other in 
astonishment. The child had disappeared. 

“ Well,” said Lucile ruefully, “ I guess that 
about ends this night’s adventure.” 

“ I guess so,” admitted Florence. 

The lights of an all-night drug store burned 
brightly across the street. 

“ That calls for hot chocolate,” said Florence. 
“ It’s what I get for moralizing. If I hadn’t 


The Papier-mache Lunch Box 57 

been going on at such a rate we would have 
kept sight of her.” 

They lingered for some time over hot choco¬ 
late and wafers. They were waiting for a sur¬ 
face car to carry them home when, on hearing 
low but excited words, they turned about to 
behold to their vast astonishment their little 
mystery child being led along by the collar of 
her dress. The person dragging her forward 
was an evil looking woman who appeared 
slightly the worse for drink. 

“ So that’s the trick,” they heard her snarl. 
“ So you would run away! Such an ungrate¬ 
fulness. After all we done for you. Now you 
shall beg harder than ever.” 

“ No, I won’t beg,” the girl answered in a 
small but determined voice. “ And I shan’t 
steal either. You can kill me first.” 

“ Well, we’ll see, my fine lady,” growled the 
woman. 

All this time the child was being dragged 
forward. As she came opposite the two girls, 
the woman gave a harder tug than before and 


58 


The Secret Mark 


the girl almost fell. Something dropped to the 
sidewalk, but the woman did not notice it, and 
the child evidently did not care, for they passed 
on. 

Lucile stooped and picked it up. It was the 
paper lunch box they had seen the child carry¬ 
ing earlier in the evening. 

“ Something in it,” she said, shaking it. 

“ Lucile,” said Florence in a tense whisper, 
“ are we going to let that beast of a woman get 
that child? She doesn’t belong to her, or if 
she does, she oughtn’t to. I’m good for a fight.” 

Lucile’s face blanched. 

“ Here in this city wilderness,” she breathed. 

“ Anywhere for the good of a child. Come 
on. 

Florence was awav after the woman and child 

0 

at a rapid rate. 

“ We’ll get the child free. Then we’ll get 
out,” breathed Florence. “ We don’t want any 
publicity.” 

Fortune favored their plan. The woman, 
still dragging the child, who was by now silently 


59 


The Papier-mache Lunch Box 

weeping, hurried into a narrow dismal alley. 

Suddenly as she looked about at sound of a 
footstep behind her, she was seized in two vises 
and hurled by some mechanism of steel and 
bronze a dozen feet in air, to land in an alley 
doorway. At least so it seemed to her, nor was 
it far from the truth. For Florence’s months of 
gymnasium work had turned her muscles into 
things of steel and bronze. It was she who 
had seized the woman. 

It was all done so swiftly that the woman 
had no time to cry out. When she rose to her 
feet, the alley was deserted. The child had 
fled in one direction, while the two girls had 
stepped quietly out into the street in the other 
direction and, apparently quite unperturbed, 
were waiting for a car. 

“ Look,” said Lucile, “ I’ve still got it. It’s 
the child’s lunch basket. There’s something 
in it. 

“ There’s our car,” said Florence in a re¬ 
lieved tone. The next moment they were rat¬ 
tling homeward. 


60 


The Secret Mark 


“ We solved no mystery to-night/’ murmured 
Lucile sleepily. 

“ Added one more to the rest,” smiled 
Florence. “ But now I am interested. We must 
see it through.” 

“ Did you hear what the child said, that she’d 
rather die than steal?” 

“ Wonder what she calls the taking of our 
Shakespeare? ” 

“ That’s part of our problem. Continued 
in our next,” smiled Lucile. 

She set the dilapidated papier-mache lunch 
box which she had picked up in the street after 
the child had dropped it, in the corner beneath 
the cloak rack. Before she fell asleep she 
thought of it and wondered what had been 
thumping round inside of it. 

“ Probably just an old, dried-up sandwich,” 
she told herself. “ Anyway, I’m too weary to 
get up and look now. I’ll look in the morning.” 

One other thought entered her consciousness 
before she fell asleep. Or was it a thought? 
Perhaps just one or two mental pictures. The 


61 


The Papier-mache Lunch Box 

buildings, the street, the electric signs that had 
encountered her gaze as they first saw the child 
and the half-drunk woman passed before her 
mind’s eye. Then, almost instantly, the picture 
of the street on which the building in which 
Frank Morrow’s book shop was located flashed 
before her. 

“ That's queer! ” she murmured. “ I do be¬ 
lieve they were the same!” 

“ And indeed,” she thought dreamily, “ why 
should they not be? They are both down in 
the heart of the city and I am forever losing 
my sense of location down there.” 

At that she fell asleep. 


CHAPTER VI 


“ONE CAN NEVER TELL” 

When Lucile awoke in the morning she re¬ 
membered the occurrence of the night before 
as some sort of bad dream. It seemed incon¬ 
ceivable that she and Florence, a couple of 
co-eds, should have thrown themselves upon a 
rough-looking woman in the heart of the city 
on a street with which they were totally un¬ 
familiar. Had they done this to free a child 
about whom they knew nothing save that she 
had stolen two valuable books? 

“Did we?” she asked sleepily. 

“Did we what?” smiled Florence, drawing 
the comb through her hair. 

“ Did we rescue that child from that 
woman? ” 

“ I guess we did.” 

“Why did we do it?” 

62 


N 


63 


"One Can Never Tell” 

“ That’s what I’ve been wondering.” 

Lucile sat up in bed and thought for a mo¬ 
ment. She gazed out of the window at the 
lovely green and the magnificent Gothic archi¬ 
tecture spread out before her. She thought of 

* • 

the wretched alleys and tumble-down tenements 
which would greet the eye of that mysterious 
child when she awoke. 

“ Anyway,” she told herself, “ we saved her 
from something even worse, I do believe. We 
sent her back to her little old tottering man. I 
do think she loves him, though who he is, her 
grandfather or what, I haven’t the faintest 
notion. 

“ Anyway I’m glad we did it,” she said. 

“ Did what?” panted Florence, who by this 
time was going through her morning exercises. 

“ Saved the child.” 

“ Yes, so am I.” 

The papier-mache lunch box remained in its 
place in the dark corner when they went to 
breakfast. Both girls had completely forgotten 
it. Had Lucile dreamed what it contained she 


64 


The Secret Mark 


would not have passed it up for a thousand 
breakfasts. Since she didn’t, she stepped out 
into the bright morning sunshine, and drinking 
in deep breaths of God’s fresh air, gave thanks 
that she was alive. 

The day passed as all schooldays pass, with 
study, lectures, laboratory work, then dinner 
as evening comes. In the evening paper an 
advertisement in the a Lost, Strayed or Stolen” 
column caught her eye. It read: 

“REWARD 

“ Will pay $100.00 reward for the 
return of small copy of The Compleat 
Angler which disappeared from the 
Morrow Book Shop on November 3.” 

It was signed by Frank Morrow. 

“ Why, that’s strange! ” she murmured. “ I 
do believe that was the book he showed me only 
yesterday, the little first edition which was worth 
sixteen hundred dollars. How strange!” 

A queer sinking sensation came over her. 

“I — I wonder if she could have taken it,” 
she whispered, “that child? 


“One Can Never Tell” 


65 


“ No, no,” she whispered emphatically after 
a moment’s thought. “ And, yet, there was the 
gargoyle bookmark in the inside cover, the same 
as in our Shakespeare. How strange! It might 
be — and, yet, one can never tell.” 

That evening was Lucile’s regular period at 
the library, so, much as she should have liked 
delving more deeply into the mystery which had 
all but taken possession of her, she was obliged 
to bend over a desk checking off books. 

Working with her was Harry Brock, a fel¬ 
low student. Harry was the kind of fellow 
one speaks of oftenest as a “ nice boy.” Clean, 
clear-cut, carefully dressed, studious, energetic 
and accurate, he set an example which was hard 
to follow. He had taken a brotherly interest 
in Lucile from the start and had helped her 
over many hard places in the library until she 
learned her duties. 

A » 

Shortly after she had come in he paused by 
her desk and said in a quiet tone: 

“ Do you know, I’m worried about the dis¬ 
appearance of that set of Shakespeare. Sort 


66 


The Secret Mark 


of gives our section a long black mark. Can’t 
see where it’s disappeared to.” 

Lucile drew in a long breath. What was he 
driving at? Did he suspect? Did he — 

“ If I wasn’t so sure our records were per¬ 
fect,” he broke in on her mental questioning, 
“ I’d say it was tucked away somewhere and 
would turn up. But we’ve all been careful. It 
just can’t be here.” 

He paused as if in reflection, then said 
suddenly: 

“ Do you think one would ever be justified in 
protecting a person whom he knew had stolen 
something? ” 

Lucile started. What did he mean? Did he 
suspect something? Had he perhaps seen her 
enter the library on one of those nights of her 
watching? Did he suspect her? For a second 
the color rushed flaming to her cheeks. But, 
fortunately, he was looking away. The next 
second she was her usual calm self. 

“ Why, yes,” she said steadily, “ I think one 
might, if one felt that there were circumstances 


“One Can Never Tell” 67 

about the apparent theft which were not clearly 
understood. 

“ You know/’ she said as a sudden inspira¬ 
tion seized her, “ we’ve just finished reading 
Victor Hugo’s story of Jean Valjean in French. 
Translating a great story a little each day, bit 
by bit, is such a wonderful way of doing it. 
And that is the greatest story that ever was 
written. Have you read it?” 

He nodded. 

“ Well, then you remember how that poor 
fellow stole a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s 
hungry children and how, without trying to 
find out about things and be just, they put him 
in prison. Then, because he tried to get out, 
they kept him there years and years. Then 
when they at last let him out, in spite of it all, 
after he had come into contact with a beautiful, 
unselfish old man, he became one of the most 
wonderful characters the world may hope to 
know. Just think how wonderful his earlier 
years, wasted in prison, might have been if 
someone had only tried a little to understand.” 


68 


The Secret Mark 


“ You’re good,” smiled Harry. “ When I 
get arrested I’ll have you for my lawyer.” 

Lucile, once more quite herself, laughed 
heartily. Then she suddenly sobered. 

“ If I were you,” she said in a low tone, “ I 
shouldn’t worry too much about that set of 
Shakespeare. Someway I have an idea that it 
will show up in its own good time.” 

Harry shot her a quick look, then as he turned 
to walk away, said in a tone of forced lightness: 

“Oh! All right.” 

The following night they were free to re¬ 
turn to the scene of the mystery, the cottage on 
dreary Tyler street where the old man and the 
strange child lived. A light shone out of the 
window with the torn shade as they loitered 
along in front of the place as before. Much 
to their surprise, not ten minutes had passed 
when the child stole forth. 

“We were just in time,” breathed Florence. 

“ Dressed just as she was on the first night 
I saw her,” Lucile whispered as the child 
passed them. 


“One Can Never Tell” 


69 


“ She’s making for the elevated station this 
time,” said Florence as they hurried along after 
her. “ That means a long trip and you are 
tired. Why don’t you let me follow her alone? ” 
“Why I — ” 

Lucile cut her speech short to grip her com¬ 
panion’s arm. 

“ Florence,” she whispered excitedly, “ did 
you hear a footstep behind us?” 

“ Why, yes, I — ” 

Florence hesitated. Lucile broke in: 

“ There was one. I am sure of it, and just 
now as I looked about there was no one in sight. 
You don’t think someone could suspect — be 
shadowing us?” 

“ Of course not.” 

“ It might be that woman who tried to carry 
the child away.” 

“ I think not. That was in another part of 
the city. Probably just nothing at all.” 

“ Yes, yes, there it is now. I hear it. Look 
about quick.” 

“ No one in sight,” said Florence. “ It’s your 


70 The Secret Mark 

nerves. You’d better go home and get a good 
night’s sleep.” 

They parted hurriedly at the station. Florence 
swung onto the train boarded by the child, a 
train which she knew would carry her to the 
north side, directly away from the university. 

“ Probably be morning before I get in,” she 
grumbled to herself. “ What a wild chase! ” 

Yet, as she stole a glance now and then at 
the child, who, all unconscious of her scrutiny, 
sat curled up in the corner of a near-by seat, 
she felt that, after all, she was worth the effort 
being made for her. 

“ Whosoever saveth a soul from destruction,” 
she whispered to herself as the train rattled on 
over the river on its way north. 

In the meantime Lucile had boarded a south¬ 
bound car. She was not a little troubled by the 
thought of those footsteps behind them on the 
sidewalk. She knew it was not her nerves. 

“ Someone was following us! ” she whispered 
to herself. “ I wonder who and why.” 

She puzzled over it all the way home; was 


“One Can Never Tell” 71 

puzzling over it still when she left her car at 
the university. 

Somewhat to her surprise she saw Harry 
Brock leave the same train. He appeared almost 
to be avoiding her but when she called to him 
he turned about and smiled. 

“ So glad to have someone to walk those five 
lonely blocks with,” she smiled. 

“ Pleasure mutual,” he murmured, but he 
seemed ill at ease. 

Lucile glanced at him curiously. 

“ He can't think I've got a crush on him,” 
she told herself. “ Our friendship’s had too 
much of the ordinary in it for that. I wonder 
what is the matter with him.” 

Conversation on the way to the university 
grounds rambled along over commonplaces. 
Each studiously avoided any reference to the 
mystery of the missing books. 

Lucile was distinctly relieved as he left her 
at the dormitory door. 

“ Well,” she heaved a sigh, “ whatever could 
have come over him? He has always been so 


72 


The Secret Mark 


frank and fine. I wonder if he suspects — but, 
no, how could he? ” 

As she hung her wrap in the corner of her 
room, her eye fell upon the papier-mache lunch 
box. Her hand half reached for it, then she 
drew it back and flung herself into a chair. 

“ To-morrow/’ she murmured. “ I’m so 
tired.” 

Fifteen minutes later she was in her bed fast 
asleep, dreaming of her pal, and in that dream 
she saw her rattling on and on and on forever 
through the night. 


CHAPTER VII 


THE VANISHING PORTLAND CHART 

Florence was not rattling on and on through 
the night as Lucile dreamed. Some two miles 
from the heart of the city her journey on the 
elevated came to a halt. The child left the car 
and went bounding down the steps. 

Not many moments passed before Florence 
realized that her destination was a famous 
library, the Newburg. Before she knew it the 
massive structure of gray sandstone loomed up 
before her. And before she could realize what 
was happening, the child had darted through 
the door and lost herself in the labyrinth of 
halls, stairways and passageways which led to 
hundreds of rooms where books were stacked 
or where huge oak tables invited one to pause 
and read. 


73 


74 


The Secret Mark 


“ She’s gone! ” Florence gasped. “ Now how 
shall I find her?” 

Walking with all the speed that proper con¬ 
duct in such a spacious and dignified hostelry 
of books would allow, she passed from room to 
room, from floor to floor, until, footsore and 
weary, without the least notion of the kind of 
room she was in or whether she was welcome 
or not, she at last threw herself into a chair to 
rest. 

“ She’s escaped me!” she sighed. “ And I 
promised to keep in touch with her. What a 
mess! But the child’s a witch. Who could be 
expected to keep up with her?” 

“Are you interested in the exhibit?” It was 
the well-modulated tone of a trained librarian 
that interrupted her train of thought. The 
question startled her. 

“ The — er — ” she stammered. “Why, yes, 
very much.” 

What the exhibit might be she had not the 
remotest notion. 

“ Ah, yes,” the lady sighed. “ Portland charts 


The Vanishing Portland Chart 75 

are indeed interesting. Perhaps you should 
like to have me explain some of them to you? u 

“ Portland charts.” That did sound inter¬ 
esting. It suggested travel. If there was any 
one thing Florence was interested in, it was 
travel. 

“ Why, yes,” she said eagerly, “ I would.” 

“ The most ancient ones,” said the librarian, 
indicating a glass case, “ are here. Here you 
see one that was made in 1440, some time before 
Columbus sailed for America. These maps 
were made for mariners. Certain men took 
it up as a life work, the making of Portland 
charts. It is really very wonderful, when you 
think of it. How old they are, four or five 
hundred years, yet the coloring is as perfect 
as if they were done but yesterday.” 

Florence listened eagerly. This was indeed 
interesting. 

“ You see,” smiled the librarian, “ in those 
days nothing much was known of what is now 
the new world, but from time to time ships lost 
at sea drifted about to land at last on strange 


76 


The Secret Mark 


shores. These they supposed were shores of 
islands. When they returned they related their 
experiences and a new island was stuck some¬ 
where on the map.. The exact location could 
not be discovered, so they might make a mis¬ 
take of a thousand or more miles in locating 
them, but that didn’t really matter, for no one 
ever went to them again.” 

“ What a time to dream of,” sighed Florence. 
“ What an age of mysteries! ” 

“ Yes, wasn’t it? But there are mysteries 
quite as wonderful to-day. Only trouble is, we 
don’t see them.” 

“ And sometimes we do see them but can’t 
solve them.” Florence was thinking of the mys¬ 
tery that thus far was her property and her 
chum’s. 

“ The maps were sometimes bound in thin 
books very much like an atlas,” the librarian 
explained. “ Here is one that is very rare.” 
She indicated a book in a case. 

The book was open at the first map with the 
inside of the front cover showing. Florence 


The Vanishing Portland Chart 77, 

was about to pass it with a glance when some¬ 
thing in the upper outside corner of the cover 
caught and held her attention. It was the pic¬ 
ture of a gargoyle with a letter L surrounding 
two sides of it. It was a bookmark and, though 
she had not seen the mark in the missing 
Shakespeare, she knew from Lucile’s descrip¬ 
tion of it that this must be an exact duplicate. 

“ Probably from the same library originally/’ 
she thought. “ I suppose these charts are worth 
a great deal of money,” she ventured. 

“ Oh! yes. A great deal. One doesn’t really 
set a price on such things. These were the 
gift of a rich man. It is the finest collection 
except one in America.” 

As Florence turned to pass on, she was 
startled to see the mysterious child who had 
escaped from her sight nearly an hour before, 
standing not ten feet from her. She was 
apparently much interested in the cherubs done 
in blue ink on one chart and used to indicate 
the prevailing direction of the winds. 

“ Ah, now I have you! ” she sighed. 


“ There 


78 The Secret Mark 

is but one door to this room. I will watch the 
door, not you. When you leave the room, I will 
follow.’’ 

With the corner of an eye on that door, she 
sauntered from case to case for another quarter 
of an hour. Then seized with a sudden desire to 
examine the chart book with the gargoyle in the 
corner of its cover, she drifted toward it. 

Scarcely could she believe her eyes as she gave 
the case a glance. The chart hook was gone . 

Consternation seized her. She was about to 
cry out when the thought suddenly came to her 
that the book had probably been removed by the 
librarian. 

The next moment a suggestion that the 
ancient map book and the presence of the child 
in the room had some definite connection flashed 
through her mind. 

Hurriedly her eye swept the room. The child 
was gone! 

There remained now not one particle of doubt 
in her mind. “ She took it,” she whispered. 
“ I wonder why.” 


The Vanishing Portland Chart 79 

Instantly her mind was in a commotion. 
Should she tell what she knew? At first she 
thought she ought, yet deliberation led to silence, 
for, after all, what did she know? She had 
not seen the child take the book. She had seen 
her in the room, that was all. 

And now the librarian, sauntering past the 
case, noted the loss. The color left her face, 
but that was all. If anything, her actions were 
more deliberate than before. Gliding to a desk, 
she pressed a button. The next moment a man 
appeared. She spoke a few words. Her tone 
was low, her lips steady. The man sauntered 
by the case, glanced about the room, then 
walked out of the door. Not a word, not an out¬ 
cry. A book worth thousands had vanished. 

Yet as she left the library, Florence felt how 
impossible it would have been for her to have 
carried that book with her. She passed four 
eagle-eyed men before she reached the outside 
door and each one searched her from head to 
foot quite as thoroughly as an X-ray might 
have done. 


80 


The Secret Mark 


“ All the same,” she breathed, as she reached 
the cool, damp outer air of night, “ the bird has 
flown, your Portland chart book is gone, for 
the time at least. 

“ Question is,” she told herself, “ what am I 
going to do about it?” 


CHAPTER VIII 


WHAT WAS IN THE PAPIER-MACHE 

LUNCH BOX 

“ We can tell whether she really took it,” 
said Lucile after listening to Florence’s story 
of her strange experiences in the Portland 
chart room of the famous old library. “ We’ll 
go back to Tyler street and look in at the 
window with the torn shade. If she took it, 
it’s sure to be in the empty space in the book¬ 
shelf. Looks like he was trying to fill that 
space.” 

“ He’s awfully particular about how it’s 
filled,” laughed Florence. “ He might pick up 
enough old books in a secondhand store to fill 
the whole space and not spend more than a 
dollar.” 

“ Isn’t it strange! ” mused Lucile. “ He 
might pack a hundred thousand dollars’ worth 

81 


82 


The Secret Mark 


of old books in a space two feet long, and will 
at the rate he’s going.” 

“ The greatest mystery after all is the 
gargoyle in the corner of each book they take,” 
said Florence, wrinkling her brow. “ He seems 
to be sort of specializing in those books. They 
are taken probably from a private library that 

/ 

has been sold and scattered.” 

“ That is strange! ” said Lucile. “ The whole 
affair is most mysterious! And, by the way,” 
she smiled, “ I have never taken the trouble to 
look into that papier-mache lunch box the child 
lost on the street, the night we rescued her from 
that strange and terrible woman. There might 
possibly be some clue in it.” 

“ Might,” agreed Florence. 

Now that the thought had occurred to them, 
they were eager to inspect the box. Lucile’s 
fingers trembled as they unloosed the clasps 
which held it shut. And well they might have 
trembled, for, as it was thrown open, it re¬ 
vealed a small book done in a temporary bind¬ 
ing of vellum. 


What Was in the Lunch Box 83 

Lucile gave it one glance, then with a little 
cry of surprise, dropped it as if it were on fire. 

'‘Why! Why! What? ” exclaimed Florence 
in astonishment. 

“ It's Frank Morrow’s book, Walton’s ‘ Com- 
pleat Angler.’ The first edition. The one worth 
sixteen hundred dollars. And it’s been right 
here in this room all the time! ” Lucile sank 
into a chair and there sat staring at the strangely 
found book. 

"Isn’t that queer!” said Florence at last. 

“ She — she’d been to his shop. Got into 
the building just the way you said she would, 
by posing as a scrubwoman’s child, and had 
made a safe escape when that woman for some 
mysterious reason grabbed her and tried to 
carry her off.” 

“ Looks that way,” said Florence. “ And I 
guess that’s a clear enough case against her, 
if our Shakespeare one isn’t. You’ll tell Frank 
Morrow and he’ll have her arrested, of course.” 

"I — I don’t know,” hesitated Lucile. “ I’m 
really no surer that that’s the thing to do than 


84 


The Secret Mark 


I was before. There is something so very- 
strange about it all.” 

The book fell open in her hand. The inside 
of the front cover was exposed to view. The 
gargoyle in the corner stared up at her. 

“ It’s the gargoyle!” she exclaimed. “ Why 
always the gargoyle? And how could a child 
with a face like hers consciously commit a 
theft?” 

* 

For a time they sat silently staring at the 
gargoyle. At last Lucile spoke. 

“ I think I’ll go and talk with Frank Morrow.” 

“ Will you tell him all about it? ” 

"I — I don’t know.” 

Florence looked puzzled. 

“ Are you going to take the book? ” 

Lucile hesitated. “ No,” she said after a 
moment’s thought, “ I think I sha’n’t.” 

“ Why — what — ” 

/ 

Florence paused, took one look at her room¬ 
mate’s face, then went about the business of 
gathering up material for a class lecture. 

“ Sometimes,” she said after a moment, “ I 


What Was in the Lunch Box 85 

think you are as big a riddle as the mystery 
you are trying to solve.” 

“ Why? ” Lucile exclaimed. “ I am only try¬ 
ing to treat everyone fairly.” 

“ Which can’t be done,” laughed Florence. 
“There is an old proverb which runs like this: 
‘To do right by all men is an art which no 
one knows.’ ” 

Lucie approached the shop of Frank Morrow 
in a troubled state of mind. She had Frank 
Morrow’s valuable book. She wished to play 
fair with him. She must, sooner or later, re¬ 
turn it to him. Perhaps even at this moment 
he might have a customer for the book. Time 
lost might mean a sale lost, yet she did not 
wish to return it, not at this time. She did not 
wish even so much as to admit that she had the 
book in her possession. To do so would be to 
put herself in a position which required further 
explaining. The book had been carried away 
from the bookshop. Probably it had been stolen. 
Had she herself taken it? If not, who then? 
Where was the culprit? Why should not such 


86 


The Secret Mark 


a person be punished? These were some of 
the questions she imagined Frank Morrow ask¬ 
ing her, and, for the present, she did not wish 
to answer them. 

At last, just as the elevator mounted toward 
the upper floors, she thought she saw a way out. 

“ Anyway, I’ll try it,” she told herself. 

She found Frank Morrow alone in his shop. 
He glanced up at her from over an ancient 
volume he had been scanning, then rose to bid 
her welcome. 

“ Well, what will it be to-day?” he smiled. 
“ A folio edition of Shakespeare or only the 
original manuscript of one of his plays? ” 

“ Oh,” she smiled back, “ are there really 
original manuscripts of Shakespeare’s plays?” 

“ Not that anvone has ever discovered. But, 
my young lady, if you chance to come across 
one, I’ll pledge to sell it for you for a million 
dollars flat and not charge you a cent com¬ 
mission.” 

“ Oh! ” breathed Lucile, “ that would be 
marvelous.” 


What Was in the Lunch Box 87 

Then suddenly she remembered her reason 
for being there. 

“ Please may I take a chair? ” she asked, her 
lips aquiver with some new excitement. 

“ By all means.” Frank Morrow himself 
sank into a chair. 

“ Mr. Morrow,” said Lucile, poising on the 
very edge of the chair while she clasped and 
unclasped her hands, “ if I were to tell you that 
I know exactly where your book is, the one 
worth sixteen hundred dollars; the Compleat 
Angler, what would you say? ” 

Frank Morrow let a paperweight he had been 
toying with crash down upon the top of his 
desk, yet as he turned to look at her there was 
no emotion expressed upon his face, a whimsical 
smile, that was all. 

“ I’d say you were a fortunate girl. You 
probably know I offered a hundred dollar re¬ 
ward for its return. This morning I doubled 
that.” 

Lucile’s breath came short and quick. She 
had completely forgotten the reward. She 


88 


The Secret Mark 


would be justly entitled to it. And what 
wouldn’t two hundred dollars mean to her? 
Clothes she had longed for but could not af¬ 
ford; leisure for more complete devotion to her 
studies; all this and much more could be pur¬ 
chased with two hundred dollars. 

For a moment she wavered. What was the 
use? The whole proposition if put fairly to the 
average person, she knew, would sound absurd. 
To protect two persons whom you have never 
met nor even spoken to; to protect them when 
to all appearances they were committing one 
theft after another, with no excuse which at 
the moment might be discovered; how ridiculous! 

Yet, even as she wavered, she saw again the 
face of that child, heard again the shuffling 
footstep of the tottering old man, thought of 
the gargoyle mystery; then resolved to stand 
her ground. 

“ I do know exactly where your book is,” she 
said steadily. “ But if I were to tell you that 
for the present I did not wish to have you ask 
me where it was, what would you say?” 


What Was in the Lunch Box 89 

“ Why,” he smiled as before, “ I would say 
that this was a great old world, full of many 
mysteries that have never been solved. I should 
say that a mere book was nothing to stand be¬ 
tween good friends. 

He put out a hand to clasp hers. “ When you 
wish to tell me where the book is or to see that 
it is returned, drop in or call me on the phone. 
The reward will be waiting for you.” 

Lucile’s face was flushed as she rose to go. 
She wished to tell him all, yet did not dare. 

“ But — but you might have a customer wait¬ 
ing for that book,” she exclaimed. 

“ One might,” he smiled. “ In such an event 
I should say that the customer would be obliged 
to continue to wait.” 

Lucile moved toward the door and as she did 
so she barely missed bumping into an immacu¬ 
lately tailored young man, with all too pink 
cheeks and a budding moustache. 

“ I beg your pardon,” he apologized. 

“ It was my fault,” said Lucile much confused. 

The young man turned to Frank Morrow. 


90 


The Secret Mark 


“ Show up yet? ” he asked. 

“ Not vet.” 

* 

“ Well? ,, 

“ I’ll let you know if it does.” 

‘ Yes, do. I have a notion I know where 
there’s another copy.” 

“ Well, I’ll be sorry to lose the sale, but I 
can’t promise delivery at any known date now.” 

“ Perhaps not at all? ” 

“ Perhaps.” 

The young man bowed his way out so quickly 
that Lucile was still in the shop. 

“ That,” smiled Frank Morrow, “ is R. 
Stanley Ramsey, Jr., a son of one of our richest 
men. He wanted The Compleat Angler.’ ” 

He turned to his work as if he had been 
speaking of a mere trifle. 

Lucile was overwhelmed. So he did have a 
customer who was impatient of waiting and 
might seek a copy elsewhere? Why, this Frank 
Morrow was a real sport! She found herself 
wanting more than ever to tell him everything 
and to assure him that the book would be on 


What Was in the Lunch Box 91 

his desk in two hours' time. She considered. 

But again the face of the child framed in a 
circle of light came before her. Again on the 
street at night in the clutches of a vile woman, 
she heard her say, “ I won’t steal. I’ll die first.” 

Then with a sigh she tiptoed toward the door. 

“ By the way,” Frank Morrow’s voice startled 
her, “ you live over at the university, don’t 
you?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Mind doing me a favor? ” 

“ Certainly not.” 

“ The Silver-Bamard binderies are only two 
blocks from your station. You’ll almost pass 
them. They bind books by hand; fine books, 
you know. I have two very valuable books which 
must be bound in leather. I’d hate to trust 
them to an ordinary messenger and I can’t take 
them myself. Would you mind taking them 
along? ” 

“ N — no,” Lucile was all but overcome by 
this token of his confidence in her. 

“ Thanks.” 

He wrapped the two books carefully and 


92 The Secret Mark 

handed them to her, adding, as he did so: 

“Ask for Mr. Silver himself and don’t let 
anyone else have them. Perhaps,” he suggested 
as an afterthought, “you’d like to be shown 
through the bindery. It’s rather an interesting 
place.” 

“ Indeed I should. Anything that has to do 
with books interests me.” 

He scribbled a note on a bit of paper. 

“ That’ll let you through,” he smiled, “ and 
no thanks due. * One good turn,’ you know.” 
He bowed her out of the room. 

She found Mr. Silver to be a brisk person 
with a polite and obliging manner. It was with 
a deep sense of relief that she saw the books 
safely in his hands. She had seen so much of 
vanishing books these last few days that she 
feared some strange magic trick might spirit 
them from her before they reached their 
destination. 

The note requesting that she be taken 
through the bindery she kept for another time. 
She must hurry back to the university now. 


What Was in the Lunch Box 93 

“ It will be a real treat/’ she told herself. 
“ There are few really famous binderies in 
our country. And this is one of them.” Little 
she realized as she left the long, low building 
which housed the bindery, what part it was 
destined to play in the mystery she was at¬ 
tempting to unravel. 

She returned to the university and to her 
studies. That night she and Florence went 
once more to Tyler street, to the tumble-down 
cottage where the two mysterious persons lived, 
and there the skein of mystery was thrown into 
a new tangle. 


CHAPTER IX 


SHADOWED 

A cold fog hung low over the city as the two 
girls stole forth from the elevated station that 
night on their way to Tyler street. From the 
trestlework of the elevated there came a steady 
drip-drip; the streets reeked with damp and 
chill; the electric lamps seemed but balls of light 
suspended in space. 

“ B-r-r! ” said Florence, drawing her wraps 
more closely about her. “ What a night! ” 

“ Sh! ” whispered Lucile, dragging her into 
a corner. “ There’s someone following us 
again.” 

Scarcely had she spoken the words when a 
man with collar turned up and cap pulled low 
passed within four feet of them. He traveled 
with a long, swinging stride. Lucile fancied 
that she recognized that stride, but she could 

94 


Shadowed 


95 


not be sure; also, for the moment she could not 
remember who the person was who walked in 
this fashion. 

“ Only some man returning to his home,” 
said Florence. “ This place gets on your 
nerves.” 

“ Perhaps.” said Lucile. 

As they reached the street before the cottage 
of many mysteries they were pleased to see 
lights streaming from the rent in the shade. 

“ At least we shall be able to tell whether they 
have the book of Portland charts,” sighed Lucile 
as she prepared to make a dash for the shadows. 

“ Now,” she breathed; “ there’s no one in 
sight.” 

Like two lead-colored drifts of fog they 
glided into a place by the window. 

Lucile was first to' look. The place seemed 
quite familiar to her. Indeed, at first glance 
she would have said that nothing was changed. 
The old man sat in his chair. Half in a doze, 
he had doubtless drifted into the sort of day¬ 
dream that old persons often indulge in. The 


96 


The Secret Mark 


child, too, sat by the table. She was sewing. 
That she meant to go out later was proved by 
the fact that her coat and tam-o’-shanter lay 
on a near-by chair. 

As I have said, Lucile’s first thought was that 
nothing had changed. One difference, how¬ 
ever, did not escape her. Two books had been 
added to the library. The narrow, unfilled space 
had been narrowed still further. One book was 
tall, too tall for the space which it was supposed 
to occupy, so tall that it leaned a little to the 
right. The other book did not appear to be an 
old volume. On the contrary its back was 
bright and shiny as if just coming from the 
press. It was highly ornamented with figures 
and a title done all in gold. These fairly flashed 
in the lamplight. 

“ That’s strange!” she whispered to herself. 

But even as she thought it, she realized that 
this was no ordinary publishers’ binding. 

“ Leather,” she told herself, “ rich leather 
binding and I shouldn’t wonder if the letters 
and decorations were done in pure gold.” 


Shadowed 


97 


Without knowing exactly why she did it, she 
made a mental note of every figure which played 
a part in the decorating of the back of that book. 

Then suddenly remembering her companion 
and their problem, she touched her arm as she 
whispered: 

“Look! Is that tall book second from the 
end on the shelf with the vacant space the Port¬ 
land chart book? ” 

Florence pressed her face to the glass and 
peered for the first time into the room of 
mysteries. For a full two minutes she allowed 
the scene to be photographed on the sensitive 
plates of her brain. Then turning slowly away 
she whispered: 

“ Yes, I believe it is.” 

They were just thinking of seeking a place 
of greater safety when a footstep sounded on 
the pavement close at hand. Crouching low 
they waited the stranger’s passing. 

To their consternation, he did not pass but 
turned in at the short walk which led up to the 
cottage. 


98 The Secret Mark 

Crouching still lower, scarcely breathing, they 
waited. 

The man made his way directly to the door. 
After apparently fumbling about for an electric 
button, he suddenly flashed out an electric torch. 

With an inaudible gasp Florence prepared to 
drag her companion out of their place of danger. 
But to their intense relief the man flashed the 

light off, then gave the door a resounding knock. 

* 

That one flash of light had been sufficient to 
reveal to Lucile the features of his face. She 
recognized it instantly. In her surprise she 
gripped her companion's arm until she was 
ready to cry out with pain. 

The door flew open. The man entered. The 
door was closed. 

“ Look!" whispered Lucile, pressing Florence 
toward the spot where the light streamed out. 
“ Look, I know him.” 

She gave Florence but a half moment, then 
dragging her from the place of vantage pressed 
her own face to the glass. 

“ This would be abominable,” she whispered, 


Shadowed 


99 


“ if it weren’t for the fact that we are trying 
to help them — trying to find a way out.” 

The man, a very young man with a slight 
moustache, had removed his coat and hat and 
had taken a seat. He was talking to the old 
man. He did the greater part of the talking. 
Every now and again he would pause and the 
old man would shake his head. 

This pantomime was kept up for some time. 
At last the young man rose and walked toward 
the bookshelves. The old man half rose in his 
chair as if to detain him, then settled back again. 

The young man’s eyes roved over the books, 
then came to rest suddenly in a certain spot. 
Then his hand went out. 

The old man sprang to his feet. There were 
words on his lips. What they were the girls 
could not tell. 

Smiling with the good-natured grace of one 
who is accustomed to have what he desires, the 
young man opened the book to glance at the 
title page. At once his face became eager. He 
glanced hurriedly through the book. He turned 


100 


The Secret Mark 


to put a question to the old man beside him. 

The old man nodded. 

Instantly the young man’s hand was in his 
pocket. The two girls shrank back in fear. 
But the thing he took from his pocket was a 
small book, apparently a check book. 

Speaking, he held the check book toward the 
old man. The old man shook his head. This 
touch of drama was repeated three times. Then, 
with a disappointed look on his face, the young 
man replaced the book, turned to the chair on 
which his hat and coat rested, put them on, said 
good night to the old man, bowed to the child 
and was gone. 

The two girls, after stretching their cramped 
limbs, made their way safely to the sidewalk. 

“ Who — who was he?” whispered Florence 
through chattering teeth. 

“ R. Stanley Ramsey.” 

“Not the rich Ramsey?” 

“ His son.” 

“What did he want?” 

“ I don’t know,” said Lucile, “ but it may be 



Shadowed 


101 


that we have found the man higher up, the real 
criminal. It may be that this rich young fellow 
is getting them to steal the books so he can buy 
them cheap.’’ 

Lucile told of the incident regarding the copy 
of “The Compleat Angler.” 

“ He said he thought he knew where there 
was another copy. Don’t you see, he may have 
gotten the girl to steal it. And now he comes 
for it and is disappointed because they haven’t 
got it for him.” 

“ It might be,” said Florence doubtfully, “ but 
it doesn’t seem probable, does it? He must have 
plenty of money.” 

“ Perhaps his father doesn’t give him a large 
allowance. Then, again, perhaps, he thinks such 
things are smart. They say that some rich 
men’s sons are that way. There’s something 
that happened in there though that I don’t 
understand. He — ” 

“ Hist,” whispered Florence, dragging her 
into a slow walk; “here comes the child.” 

Once more they saw the slim wisp of a girl 
steal out like a ghost into the night. 


CHAPTER X 


MYSTERIES OF THE SEA 

The trail over which the mystery child led 
them that night revealed nothing. Indeed, she 
eluded them, escaping the moment she left the 

r 

elevated train at a down town station. 

“ Nothing to do but go home,” said Florence 
in a disappointed tone. 

“ Oh, well, cheer up,” smiled Lucile. “ We’ve 
had a new chapter added to our mystery, as 
well as a whole new character who promises to 
become interesting. But look, Florence,” she 
whispered suddenly. “ No, don’t stare, just 
glance down toward the end of the platform. 
See that man?” 

“ The one with his collar turned up and with 
his back to us? ” 

“ Yes.” 


102 


Mysteries of the Sea 103 

“ That’s the man who passed us when we were 
on our way to the mystery cottage.” 

“ Are you sure? ” 

“ Can’t be mistaken. Same coat, same hat, 
same everything.” 

“ Why then — ” 

Florence checked herself. A moment later 
she said in a quiet tone of voice: 

“ Lucile, don’t you think it’s about time we 
waded ashore? Came clear and got out of this 
affair; turned facts over to the authorities and 
allowed them to take their course ? ” 

Lucile was silent for a moment. Then sud¬ 
denly she shivered all over and whispered 
tensely: 

“ No — no, not quite yet.” 

“ We may get in over our necks.” 

“ I can swim. Can’t you? ” 

“ m try,” Florence laughed, and there for 
the time the matter ended. 

Lucile worked in the library two hours the 
next day. One fact could not escape her atten¬ 
tion. Harry Brock had been losing a lot of 


104 


The Secret Mark 


sleep. She saw him rubbing his eyes from time 
to time and once he actually nodded over his 
records. 

“ Been studying late?” she asked in friendly 
sympathy. 

He shot her a quick, penetrating glance, then, 
seeming to catch himself, said, “ Oh, yes, quite 
a bit.” 

That afternoon, finding study difficult and 
being in need of a theme for a special article to 
be written for English 5b, she decided to use 
her card of admittance to the bindery and glean 
the material for the theme from that institution. 

She could scarcely have chosen a more fitting 
subject, for there are few places more inter¬ 
esting than a famous book bindery. Unfortu¬ 
nately, something occurred while she was there 
that quite drove all the thoughts of her theme 
out of her head and added to her already over¬ 
burdened shoulders an increased weight of 
responsibility. 

A famous bindery is a place of many won¬ 
ders. The stitching machines, the little and 


105 


Mysteries of the Sea 

great presses, the glowing fires that heat irons 
for the stamping, all these and many more lend 
an air of industry, mystery and fine endeavor 
to the place. 

Not in the general bindery, where thousands 
of books are bound each day, did Lucile find 
her chief interest, however. It was when she 
had been shown into a small side room, into 
which the natural sunlight shone through a 
broad window, that she realized that she had 
reached the heart of the place. 

“ This,” said the young man attending her, 
“ is the hand bindery. Few books are bound 
here; sometimes not more than six a year, but 
they are handsomely, wonderfully bound. Mr. 
Kirkland, the head of this department, will tell 
you all about it. I hear my autophone call. I 
will come for vou a little later.” 

Lucile was not sorry to be left alone in such 
a room. It was a place of rare enchantment. 
Seated at their benches, bending over their work, 
with their blue 'fires burning before them, were 
three skilled workmen. They were more than 


106 


The Secret Mark 


workmen; they were artists. The work turned 
out by them rivaled in beauty and perfection 
the canvas of the most skilled painter. They 
wrought in inlaid leather and gold; the artist in 
crayon and oils. The artist uses palette, knife 
and brush; their steel tools were fashioned to 
suit their art. 

Ranged along one side of the room was a long 
rack in which these tools were kept. There 
were hundreds of them, and each tool had its 
place. Every now and again from the benches 
there came a hot sizzling sound, which meant 
that one of these tools was being tested after 
having been heated over the flame. 

Seeing her looking at the rack of tools, the 
head workman, a broad-shouldered man with a 
pleasant smile and keen blue eyes, turned to¬ 
ward her. 

“Would you like to have me tell you a little 
about them?” he asked. 

“ Indeed I should.” 

“ Those tools once belonged to Hans Wiemar, 
the most famous man ever knbwn to the craft. 


107 


Mysteries of the Sea 

After he died I bought them from his widow. 
He once spent three years binding a single book. 
It was to be presented to the king of England. 
He was a very skillful artisan. 

“ We bind some pretty fine books here, too,” 
he said modestly. “ Here is one I am only just 
beginning. You see it is a very large book, a 
book of poetry printed in the original German. 
I shall be at least two months doing it. 

“ The last one I had was much smaller but 
it was to have taken me four months.” 

A shadow passed over his face. 

“ Did — did you finish it?” asked Lucile, a 
tone of instinctive sympathy in her voice. 

“ It was an ancient French book, done in 
the oldest French type. It was called ‘ Mys¬ 
teries of the Sea/ ” he went on without answer¬ 
ing her question. “ This was the tool we used 
most on it,” he said, holding out the edge of 
a steel tool for her inspection. “ You see, the 
metal is heated and pressed into the leather in 
just the right way, then gold, twenty-two carat 
gold, is pressed into the creases that are left 


108 


The Secret Mark 


and we have a figure in gold as a result. This 
one you see is in the form of an ancient sailing 
ship.” 

Lucile started, then examined the tool more 
carefully. 

“ Here is another tool we used. It repre¬ 
sents clouds. This one makes the water. You 
see we use appropriate tools. The book was 
about ships and the sea, written before the time 
of Columbus.” 

He was silent for a moment, then said slowly, 
a look of pain coming into his fine face, “ I 
suppose I might as well tell you. The book 
was stolen, stolen from my bench during the 
lunch hour.” 

Lucile started violently. 

The artist stared at her for a second, then 
went on. 

“ Of course, I can't be held responsible, yet 
no doubt they blame me in a way. The book 
was very valuable — worth thousands of dol¬ 
lars. And it would have been finished in two 
days.” He bowed his head as if in silent grief. 


i 


109 


Mysteries of the Sea 

“ Please/' Lucile’s lips quivered with emotion 
as she spoke, “ did the book have three of these 
ancient ship designs on the back of it, one large 
and two small?" 

“ Yes." 

“ And was it done in dark red leather with the 
decorations all in gold?" 

“ Yes, yes!" the man’s tones were eager. 

“ And, and," Lucile whispered the words, 
“ was there a bookmark in the upper corner of 
the inside of the front cover?" 

“ Yes, yes, yes!" He uttered the words in 
a tense whisper. “ How can you know so much 
about the book?" 

“ Please," pleaded Lucile, “ I can’t tell you 
now. But per — perhaps I can help you.’’ 

“ I will take you to our president, to Mr. 
Silver." 

# 

“ Please — please — no — not now. Please 
let me go now. I must think. I will come back 
— truly — truly I will." 

With the instinct of a born gentleman he 
escorted her to a side door and let her out. 


110 


The Secret Mark 


The sunshine, as she emerged, seemed unreal 
to her. Everything seemed unreal. 

“ The gargoyle! The gargoyle!” she whis¬ 
pered hoarsely. “ Can I never escape it? Can 
I go no place without discovering that books 
marked with that hated, haunting sign have 
been stolen? That book, the hand-bound copy 
of * Mysteries of the Sea,’ is the latest acquire¬ 
ment of the old man in the mystery cottage on 
Tyler street. She stole it; the child stole it. 
And why? Why? It seems that I should tell 
all that I know,” she whispered to herself, “ that 
it is my duty. Surely the thing can't go on.” 
She bathed her flushed cheeks in the outer air. 

“ And yet,” she thought more calmly, “ there 
are the old man, the child. There is something 
back of it all. The gargoyle's secret. Oh! if 
only one knew!” 


CHAPTER XI 


LUCILE SHARES HER SECRET 

As Lucile returned to her room it seemed to 
her that she was being hedged about on all 
sides by friends who had a right to demand 
that she reveal the secret hiding-place of the 
stolen books. The university which had done 
so much for her, Frank Morrow, her father’s 
friend, the great scientific library which was a 
friend to all, and now this splendid artist who 
worked in leather and gold; they all appeared 
to be reaching out their hands to her. 

In her room for two hours she paced the 
floor. Then she came to a decision. 

“ I’ll tell one of them; tell the whole story 
and leave it to him. Who shall it be? ” 

The answer came to her instantly: Frank 
Morrow. 

“ Yes, he’s the one,” she whispered. “ He’s 

111 


112 The Secret Mark 

the most human of them all. White-haired as 
he is, I believe he can understand the heart of 
a child and — and of a girl like me.” 

She found him busy with some customers. 
When he had completed the sale and the cus¬ 
tomers had gone, she drew her chair close to 
his and told him the story frankly from begin¬ 
ning to end. The only thing she left out was the 
fact that she held suspicions against the young 
millionaire’s son. 

“ If there’s ground for suspicion, he’ll dis¬ 
cover it,” she told herself. 

Frank Morrow listened attentively. At times 
he leaned forward with the light on his face 
that one sometimes sees upon the face of a boy 
who is hearing a good story of pirates and the 
sea. 

“ Well,” he dampened his lips as she finished, 
“ well! ” 

For some time after that there was silence 
in the room, a silence so profound that the 
ticking of Frank Morrow’s watch sounded loud 
as a grandfather’s clock. 



Lucile Shares Her Secret 113 

At last Frank Morrow wheeled about in his 
chair and spoke. 

“ You know, Miss Lucile,” he said slowly, 
“ I am no longer a child, except in spirit. I 
have read a great deal. I have thought a great 
deal, sitting alone in this chair, both by day 
and by night. Very often I have thought of 
us, of the whole human race, of our relation to 
the world, to the being who created us and to 
one another. 

“ I have come to think of life like this,” he 
said, his eyes kindling. “ It may seem a rather 
gloomy philosophy of life, but when you think 
of it, it’s a mighty friendly one. I think of 
the whole human race as being on a huge raft 
in mid-ocean. There’s food and water enough 
for everyone if all of us are saving, careful and 
kind. Not one of us knows how we came on 
the raft. No one knows whither we are bound. 
From time to time we hear the distant waves 
break on some shore, but what shore we cannot 
tell. The earth, of course, is our raft and the 
rest of the universe our sea. 


114 


The Secret Mark 


“ What’s the answer to all this? Just this 
much: Since we are so situated, the greatest, 
best thing, the thing that will bring us the 
greatest amount of real happiness, is to be kind 
to all, especially those weaker than ourselves, 
just as we would if we were adrift on a raft 
in the Atlantic. 

“ Without all this philosophy, you have caught 
the spirit of the thing. I can’t advise you. I 
can only offer to assist you in any way you may 
suggest. It’s a strange case. The old man is 
doubtless a crank. Many book collectors are. 
It may be, however, that there is some stronger 
hand back of it all. The girl appears to be 
the old man’s devoted slave and is too young 
truly to understand right from wrong. I should 
say, however, that she is clever far beyond her 
years.” 

Lucile left the shop strengthened and encour¬ 
aged. She had not found a solution to her prob¬ 
lem but had been told by one much older and 
wiser than she that she was not going at the 
affair in the wrong way. She had received his 



The man sprang back in fear—Chapter XII. 











































' 






















Lucile Shares Her Secret 115 

assurance of his assistance at any time when it 
seemed needed. 

That night a strange thing happened. Lucile 
had learned by repeated experience that very 
often the solution of life’s perplexing problems 
comes to us when we are farthest from them 
and engaged in work or pursuit of pleasure 
which is most remote from them. Someone had 
given her a ticket to the opera. Being a lover 
of music, she had decided to abandon her work 
and the pursuit of the all-absorbing mystery, to 
forget herself listening to outbursts of enchant¬ 
ing song. 

The outcome had been all that she might 
hope for. Lost in the great swells of music 
which came to her from hundreds of voices or 
enchanted by the range and beauty of a single 
voice, she forgot all until the last curtain had 
been called and the crowd thronged out. 

There was a flush on her cheek and new light 
in her eyes as she felt the cool outer air of the 
street. 

She had walked two blocks to her station and 


116 


The Secret Mark 


was about to mount the stairs when, to her 
utter astonishment, she saw the mystery child 
dart across the street. Almost by instinct she 
went in full pursuit. 

The child, all oblivious of her presence, after 
crossing the street, darted down an alley and, 
after crossing two blocks, entered one of those 
dark and dingy streets which so often flank 
the best and busiest avenues of a city. 

At the third door to the left, a sort of half 
basement entrance that one reached by descend¬ 
ing a short stairs, the child paused and fumbled 
at the doorknob. Lucile was just in time to get 
a view of the interior as the door flew open. 
The next instant she sprang back into the 
shadows. 

She gripped at her wildly beating heart and 
steadied herself against the wall as she mur¬ 
mured, “It couldn’t be! Surely! Surely it 
could not be.” 

And yet she was convinced that her eyes 
had not deceived her. The person who had 
opened the door was none other than the woman 


Lucile Shares Her Secret 117 

who had treated the child so shamefully and 
had dragged her along the street. And now 
the child had come to the door of the den which 
this woman called home and of her own free 
will had entered the place and shut the door. 
What could be the meaning of all this. 

Some mysteries are long in solving. Some 
are apparently never solved. Some scarcely be¬ 
come mysteries before their solution appears. 
This mystery was of the latter sort. 

Plucking up all the courage she could com¬ 
mand, Lucile made her way down the steps 
and, crowding herself through a narrow open¬ 
ing, succeeded in reaching a position by a win¬ 
dow. Here she could see without being seen 
and could catch fragments of the conversation 
which went on within. 

The child had advanced to the center of the 
room. The woman and a man, worse in ap¬ 
pearance, more degraded than the woman, stood 
staring at her. There was something heroic 
about the tense, erect bearing of the child. 

“ Like Joan of Arc,” Lucile thought. 


118 


The Secret Mark 


The child was speaking. The few words that 
Lucile caught sent thrills into her very soul. 

The child was telling the woman that she 
had had a book, which belonged to her friend, 
Monsieur Le Bon. This book was very old and 
much prized by him. She had had it with her 
that other night in a lunch box. The woman 
had taken it. She had come for it. It must 
be given back. 

As the child finished, the woman burst into a 
hoarse laugh. Then she launched forth in a 
tirade of abusive language. She did not admit 
having the book nor yet deny it. She was too 
intent upon abusing the child and the old man 
who had befriended her for that. 

At last she sprang at the child. The child 
darted for the door, but the man had locked 
and bolted it. There followed a scramble about 
the room which resulted in the upsetting of 
chairs and the knocking of kitchen utensils from 
the wall. At last the child, now fighting and 
sobbing, was roped to the high post of an ancient 
bedstead. 


Lucile Shares Her Secret 119 

Then, to Lucile’s horror, she saw the man 
thrust a heavy iron poker through the grate of 
the stove in which a fire burned brightly. 

Her blood ran cold. Chills raced up her 
spine. What was the man’s purpose? Cer¬ 
tainly nothing good. Whatever these people 
were to the child, whatever the child might be, 
the thing must be stopped. The child had at 
least done one heroic deed; she had come back 
for that book, the book which at this moment 
rested in Lucile’s own room, Frank Morrow’s 
book. She had come for it knowing what she 
must face and had come not through fear but 
through love for her patriarchal friend, Mon¬ 
sieur Le Bon. Somehow she must be saved. 

With a courage born of despair, Lucile made 
her way from the position by the window to¬ 
ward the door. As she did so, she thought she 
caught a movement on the street above her. 
She was sure that a second later she heard the 
sound of lightly running footsteps. Had she 
been watched from above? What was to come 
of that? There was no time to form an 


120 The Secret Mark 

answer. One hand was on the knob. With the 
other she beat the door. The door swung open. 
She stepped inside. It seemed to her that the 
door shut itself behind her. For a second her 
heart stood still as she realized that the man 
was behind her; that the door was bolted. 


CHAPTER XII 


THE TRIAL BY FIRE 

The moment Lucile heard the lock click be¬ 
hind her she knew that she was trapped. But 
her fighting blood was up. Even had the door 
been wide open she would not have retreated. 

“ You release that child,” she said through 
cold, set lips. 

“ Yes, you tell me ‘release the child/ ” said 
the woman, with an attempt at sarcasm; “ you 
who are so brave, who have a companion who 
is like an ox, who like to beat up poor women 
on the street. You say, ‘ release the child/ 
You say that. And the child, she is my own 
stepdaughter. 

“ I — I don’t believe it,” said Lucile stoutly. 

* It is true.” 

** If it is true, you have no right to abuse her 
— you are not fit to be any child’s mother.” 

121 


122 


The Secret Mark 


“ Not fit,” the woman’s face became purple 
with rage. “ I am no good, she says; not fit! ” 
She advanced threateningly toward Lucile. 

“ Now, now,” she stormed, “ we have you 
where we want you. Now we shall show you 
whether or not we can do as we please with 
the child that was so very kindly given to us.” 
She made a move toward the stove, from which 
the handle to the heavy poker protruded. By 
this time the end must be red hot. 

“ It’s no use to threaten me,” said Lucile 
calmly. “ I wouldn’t leave the room if I might. 
If I did it would be to bring an officer. I 
mean to see that the child is treated as a human 
being and not as a dog.” 

The woman’s face once more became purple. 
She seemed petrified, quite unable to move, from 
sheer rage. 

But the man, a sallow-complexioned person 
with a perpetual leer in one corner of his mouth, 
started for the stove. 

With a quick spring Lucile reached the han¬ 
dle of the poker first. Seizing it, she drew it, 


123 


The Trial By Fire 

white hot, from the fire. The man sprang back 
in fear. The woman gripped the rounds of a 
heavy chair and made as if to lift it for a 
blow. 

Scarcely realizing that she was imitating her 
hero of fiction, she brought the glowing iron 
close to the white and tender flesh of her fore¬ 
arm. 

“ You think you can frighten me,” she smiled. 
“ You think you can do something to me which 
will cause me to cease to attempt to protect that 
child. Perhaps you would torture me. I will 
prove to you that you cannot frighten me. 
What I have been doing is right. The world 
was made for people to live in who do right. 
If one may not always do right, then life is 
not worth living.” 

The fiery weapon came closer to her arm. 
The woman stared at her as if fascinated. The 
child, who had been silently struggling at her 
bands, paused in open-mouthed astonishment. 
For once the leer on the man’s lips vanished. 
Then, of a sudden, as she appeared to catch 


124 The Secret Mark 

the meaning of it all, the child gave forth a 
piercing scream. 

The next instant there came a loud pounding 
at the door as a gruff voice thundered: 

“ Here, you in there! Open up! ” 

The woman dropped upon the ill-kept bed 
in a real or pretended swoon. Lucile allowed 
the poker to drop to her side. With trembling 
fingers the man unloosed the door and the next 
instant they were looking into the faces of a 
police sergeant and two other officers of the 
law. 

“ What’s going on here?” demanded the 
sergeant. 

Suddenly recovering from her swoon, the 
woman sprang to her feet. 

“ That young lady,” she pointed an accusing 
finger at Lucile, “ is attempting to break up our 
home.” 

The officer looked them over one by one. 

“ What's the girl tied up for? ” he demanded. 

“ It's the only way we can keep her home,” 
said the woman. “ That young lady's been en- 


The Trial By Fire 125 

ticing her away; her and an old wretch of a 
man.” 

“ Your daughter?” 

“ My adopted daughter.” 

“What about it, little one?” the officer 
stepped over, and cutting the girl’s bands, placed 
a hand on the child’s head. “ Is what she says 
true? ” 

“I — I don’t know,” she faltered. Her 
knees trembled so she could scarcely stand. “ I 
never saw the young lady until now but I — I 
think she is wonderful.” 

“ Is this woman your stepmother.” 

The girl hung her head. 

“ Do you wish to stay with her? ” 

“ Oh! Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! No! No! No! 
Oh, Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!” 

The child in her agony of fright and grief 
threw herself face down upon the bed. 

The officer, seating himself beside her, 
smoothed her hair with his huge right hand 
until she was quiet, then bit by bit got from 
her the story of her experiences in this great 


126 


The Secret Mark 


American city. Lucile listened eagerly as the 
little girl talked falteringly. 

A Belgian refugee, she had been brought to 
the United States during the war, and because 
this unprincipled pair spoke French, which she 
too understood, the good-hearted but misguided 
people who had her in charge had given her 
over to them without fully looking up their 
record. 

Because she was small and had an appealing 
face, and because she was a refugee, they had 
set her to begging on the street and had more 
than once asked her to steal. 

Having been brought up by conscientious 
parents, all this was repulsive to her. So one 
day she had run away. She had wandered the 
streets of the great, unfriendly city until, al¬ 
most at the point of starvation, she had been 
taken home by a very old man, a Frenchman. 

“ French,'” she said, “but not like these,” 
she pointed a finger of scorn at the man and 
woman. “ A French gentleman. A very, very 
wonderful man.” 


127 


The Trial By Fire 

She had lived with him and had helped him 
all she could. Then, one night, as she was on an 
errand for him, the woman, her stepmother, had 
found her. She had been seized and dragged 
along the street. But by some strange chance 
she did not at all understand, she had been 
rescued. 

That night she had been carrying a book. 
The book belonged to her aged benefactor and 
was much prized by him. Thinking that her 
foster mother had the book, she had dared re¬ 
turn to ask for it. 

She proceeded to relate what had happened 
in that room and ended with a plea that she 
might be allowed to return to the cottage on 
Tyler street. 

“Are you interested in this child? the offi- 
* 

cer asked Lucile. 

“ I surely am:’’ 

“Want to see that she gets safely home?” 
“ I — I will.” 

“ And see here,” the officer turned a stern 
face on the others, “ if you interfere with this 


128 


The Secret Mark 


child in the future, we’ve got enough on you 
to put you away. You ain't fit to be no child’s 
parents. Far as I can tell, this here old man 
is. This case, for the present, is settled out of 
court. See!” 

He motioned to his subordinates. They stood 
at attention until Lucile and the child passed 
out, then followed. 

The sergeant saw the girl and the child safely 
on the elevated platform, then, tipping his hat, 
mumbled: 

“ Good luck and thank y’ miss. I’ve got two 
of ’em myself. An’ if anything ever happened 
to me, I’d like nothin’ better’n to have you take 
an interest in ’em.” 

Something rose up in Lucile’s throat and 
choked her. She could only nod her thanks. 
The next instant they w r ent rattling aw^ay, bound 
for the mystery cottage on Tyler street. 

For once Lucile felt richly repaid for all the 
doubt, perplexity and sleepless hours she had 
gone through. 

“ It’s all very strange and mysterious,” she 


The Trial By Fire 129 

told herself, “ but somehow, sometime, it will all 
come out right.” 

As she sat there absorbed in her own 
thoughts, she suddenly became conscious of the 
fact that the child at her side was silently weep¬ 
ing. 

“Why!” she exclaimed, “what are you cry¬ 
ing for? You are going back to your cottage 
and to your kind old man.” 

“ The book,” whispered the child; “ it is gone. 
I can never return it.” 

A sudden impulse seized Lucile, an impulse 
she could scarcely resist. She wanted to take 
the child in her arms and say: 

“ Dear little girl, I have the book in my room. 
I will bring it to you to-morrow.” 

She did not say it. She could not. As far 
as she knew, the old man had no right to the 
book; it belonged to Frank Morrow. 

What she did say was, “ I shouldn't worry 
any more about it if I were you. I am sure 
it will come out all right in the end.” 


130 


The Secret Mark 


Then, before they knew it, they were off the 
elevated train and walking toward Tyler street 
and Lucile was saving to herself, “ I wonder 
what next/’ Hand-in-hand the two made their 
way to the door of the dingy old cottage. 


CHAPTER XIII 


IN THE MYSTERY ROOM AT NIGHT 

Much to her surprise, just when she had ex¬ 
pected to be trudging back to the station alone, 
Lucile found herself seated by a table in the 
mystery room. She was sipping a delicious 
cup of hot chocolate and talking to the mystery 
child and her mysterious godfather. Every now 
and again she paused to catch her breath. It 
was hard for her to realize that she was in 
the mystery room of the mysterious cottage on 
Tyler street. Yet there she certainly was. 
The child had invited her in. 

A dim, strangely tinted light cast dark shad¬ 
ows over everything. The strange furniture 
took on grotesque forms. The titles of the 
books along the wall gleamed out in a strange 
manner. 

For a full five minutes the child talked to 


131 


132 The Secret Mark 

the old man in French. He exclaimed now and 
then, but other than that took no part in the 
conversation. 

When she had finished, he held out a thin, 
bony hand to Lucile and said in perfect English: 

“ Accept my thanks for what you have done 
to protect this poor little one, my pretty Marie. 
You are a brave girl and should have a reward. 
But, alas, I have little to give save my books 
and thev are an inheritance, an inheritance 
thrice removed. They were my great-grand¬ 
father’s and have descended direct to me. One 
is loath to part with such treasure.” 

“ There is no need for any reward,” said 
Lucile quickly. “ I did it because I was in¬ 
terested in the child. But,” with a sudden in¬ 
spiration, “ if you wish to do me a favor, tell 
me the story of your life.” 

The man gave her a quick look. 

“ You are so — so old,” she hastened to add, 
“ and so venerable, so soldier-like, so like Gen¬ 
eral Joffre. Your life must have been a won¬ 
derful one.” 


In the Mystery Room at Night 133 

“ Ah, yes,” the old man settled back in his 
chair. As if to brush a mist from before his 
eyes, he made a waving motion with his hand. 
“ Ah, yes, it has been quite wonderful, that is, 
I may say it once was. 

“ I was bom near a little town named Gon- 
drecourt in the province of Meuse in France. 
There was a small chateau, very neat and beau¬ 
tiful, with a garden behind it, with a bit of 
woods and broad acres for cattle and grain. 
All that was my father’s. It afterwards be¬ 
came mine. 

“ In one room of the chateau were many, 
many ancient volumes, some in French, some in 
English, for my father was a scholar, as also 
he educated me to be. 

“ These books were the cream of many gen¬ 
erations, some dating back before the time of 
Columbus.” 

Lucile, thinking of the book of ancient Port¬ 
land charts, allowed her gaze for a second to 
stray to the shelf where it reposed. 

Again the man threw her a questioning look, 


i 


134 The Secret Mark 

but once more went on with his narrative of his 
life in far-off France. 

“ Of all the treasures of field, garden, woods 
or chateau, the ones most prized by me were 
those ancient books. So, year after year I 
guarded them well, guarded them until an old 
man, in possession of all that was once my 
father’s, I used to sit of an evening looking off 
at the fading hills at eventide with one of those 
books in my lap. 

“ Then came the war.” Again his hand went 
up to dispel the imaginary mist. “ The war 
took my two sons. They never came back. It 
took my three grandsons. We gave gladly, for 
was it not our beloved France that was in dan¬ 
ger? They, too, never returned.” 

The old man’s hand trembled as he brushed 
away the imaginary mist. 

“ I borrowed money to give to France. I 
mortgaged my land, my cattle, my chateau; 
only my treasure of books I gave no man a 
chance to take. They must be mine until I 
died. They of all the treasures I must keep. 


In the Mystery Room at Night 135 

“ One night,” his voice grew husky, “ one 
night there came a terrible explosion. The earth 
rocked. Stones of the castle fell all about the 
yard. The chateau was in ruins. It was a 
bomb from an airplane. 

“ Someway the library was not touched. It 
alone was safe. How thankful I was that it 
was so. It was now all that was left. 

“ I took my library to a small lodging in the 
village. Then, when the war was ended, I 
packed all my books in strong boxes and started 
for Paris.” 

He paused. His head sank upon his breast. 
His lips quivered. It was as if he were endur¬ 
ing over again some great sorrow. 

“ Perhaps,” he said after a long time, “ one 
is foolish to grieve over what some would say 
is a trifle compared to other losses. But one 
comes to love books. They are his very dear 
friends. With them he shares his great pleas¬ 
ures. In times of sorrow they console him. Ah, 
yes, how wonderful they are, these books?” 
His eyes turned toward the shelves. 


136 


The Secret Mark 


Then, suddenly, his voice changed. He has¬ 
tened on. He seemed to desire to have done 
with it. One might have believed that there was 
something he was keeping back which he was 
afraid his lips might speak. 

“ I came to America,” he said hoarsely, “ and 
here I am in your great city, alone save for 
this blessed child, and — and my books — some 
of my books — most of my books.” 

Again he was silent. The room fell into such 
a silence that the very breathing of the old man 
sounded out like the exhaust of an engine. 
Somewhere in another room a clock ticked. It 
was ghostly. 

Shaking herself free from the spell of it, 
Lucile said, “I — I think I must go.” 

“No! No!” cried the old man. “Not until 
you have seen some of my treasures, my books.” 

Leading her to the shelves, he took down 
volume after volume. He placed them in her 
hands with all the care of a salesman display¬ 
ing rare and fragile china. 

She looked at the outside of some; then made 


In the Mystery Room at Night 137 

bold to open the covers and peep within. They 
were all beyond doubt very old and valuable. 
But one fact stood out in her mind as she finally 
bade them good night, stood out as if embossed 
upon her very soul: In the inside upper corner 
of the cover of every volume, done on expensive, 
age-browned paper, there was the same gar¬ 
goyle, the same letter L as had been in the other 
mysterious volumes. 

“ The gargoyle’s secret,” .she whispered as 
she came out upon the dark, damp streets. “ The 
gargoyle’s secret. I wonder what it is! ” 

Then she started as if in fear that the gar¬ 
goyle were behind her, about to spring at her 
from the dark. 


CHAPTER XIV 


A STRANGE REQUEST 

“ But, Lucile!” exclaimed Florence in an ex¬ 
cited whisper, springing up in her bed after she 
had heard Lucile’s story. “ How did the police 
know that something was going wrong in that 
house? How did they come to be right there 
when you needed them most? ,, 

“ That's just what I asked the sergeant,” an¬ 
swered Lucile, “ and he just shrugged his shoul¬ 
ders and said, ‘ Somebody tipped it off/ ” 

“ Which meant, I suppose, that someone re¬ 
ported the fact to police headquarters that some¬ 
thing was wrong in that house.” 

“ I suppose so.” 

“ Is that all you know about it? ” 

“ Why, I — I thought I heard someone hurry¬ 
ing away on the sidewalk just as I was going 
to enter.” 


138 


139 


A Strange Request 

“ You don’t suppose — ” 

“ Oh, I don’t know what to suppose,” Lucile 
gave a short, hysterical laugh. “ It is getting to 
be much too complicated for me. I can't stand 
it much longer. Something’s going to burst. 
I think all the time that someone is dogging 
my tracks. I think someone must suspect me 
of being in league with this old man and the 
child.” 

“ But if they did, why should they call the 

police for your protection?” 

“ Yes, why? Why? A whole lot of whys. 

And who would suspect me? I would trust 

Frank Morrow to keep faith with me. I am 

sure he trusts me fully. The Portland chart 

* 

book affair I was not in at all. The bindery 
would scarcely suspect me. There’s only our 
own library left. You don’t think — ” 

“ One scarcely knows what to think,” said 
Florence wearily. u We sometimes forget that 
we are but two poor girls who are more or less 
dependent on the university for our support 
while we secure an education. Perhaps you 


140 


The Secret Mark 


should have confided in the library authorities 
in the beginning/’ 

“ Perhaps. But it’s too late now. I must 
see the thing through.” 

“ You don’t believe the old Frenchman’s 
story.” 

“ I don’t know. It’s hard to doubt it. He 
seems so sincere. There’s something left out, 
I suppose.” 

“ Of course there is. In order to keep from 
starving, he was obliged to sell some of his 
books. Then, being heartbroken over the loss 
of them, he has induced the child to steal them 
back for him. That seems sensible enough, 
doesn’t it? Of course it’s a pity that he should 
have been forced to sell them, but they were, 
in a way, a luxury. We all are obliged to give 
up some luxuries. For my part, I don’t see how 
you are going to keep him out of jail. The 
child will probably come clear because of her 
age, but there’s not a chance in a million of 
saving him. There’s got to be a show-down 
sometime. Why not now? The facts we have 


/ 


A Strange Request 141 

in our possession are the rightful property of 
others, of our library, Frank Morrow, the scien¬ 
tific library, of the Silver-Barnard bindery. 
Why not pass them on?” 

Florence was sitting bolt upright in bed. She 
pointed her finger at her roommate by way of 
emphasis. 

But, tired and perplexed as she was, Lucile 
never flinched. 

“ Your logic is all right save for two things,” 
she smiled wearily. 

“ What two?” 

“ The character of the old man and the char¬ 
acter of the child. They could not do the thing 
you suggest. No, not for far greater reward. 
Not in a thousand vears.” She beat the bed 

J 

with her hands. “ There must be some other 
explanation. There must. There must!” 

For a moment there was silence in the room. 
Lucile removed her street garments, put on her 
dream robe, then crept into bed. 

“ Oh,” she sighed, “ I forgot to tell you. 
what that extraordinary child asked me to do-.” 


142 


The Secret Mark 


“ What? ” 

“ She said she had an errand to do for the 
old Frenchman; that it would take her a long 
way from home and she was afraid to go alone. 
She asked me if I would go with her.” 

“ What did you tell her ? ” 

“I — I told her that both my roommate and 
I would go.” 

“ You did! ” 

“ Why, yes.” 

“Well,” said Florence, after a moment’s 
thought, “ I’ll go, but if it’s another frightful 
robbery, if she’s going to break in somewhere 
and carry away some book worth thousands of 
dollars, I’m not in on it. I — I’ll drag her to 
the nearest police station and our fine little mys¬ 
tery will end right there.” 

“ Oh, I don’t think it can be anything like 
that,” said Lucile sleepily. “ Anyway, we can 
only wait and see.” 

With that she turned her right cheek over on 
the pillow and was instantly fast asleep. 


CHAPTER XV 


A STRANGE JOURNEY 

The hours of the following day dragged as 
if on leaden wings. With nerves worn to single 
strands, Lucile was now literally living on ex¬ 
citement. The fact that she was to go with the 
mystery child on a night’s trip which held prom¬ 
ise of excitement and possible adventure in it, 
went far toward keeping her eyes open and on 
their task, but for all this, the hours dragged. 

At the library she was startled to note the 
worn and haggard look on Harry Brock’s face. 
She wanted to ask him the cause of it and to 
offer sympathy, but he appeared to actually 
avoid her. Whenever she found some excuse to 
move in his direction, he at once found one for 
moving away to another corner of the library. 

“ Whatever can be the matter with him?” 
she asked herself. “ I wonder if I could have 


143 


144 The Secret Mark 

offended him in any way. I should hate to lose 
his friendship/’ 

Night came at last and with it the elevated 
station and Tyler street. 

With her usual promptness, the child led 
them to a surface car. They rode across the 
city. From the car they hurried to an inter- 
urban depot of a steam line. 

“ So it’s to be out of the city,” Florence whis¬ 
pered to Lucile. “ I hadn’t counted on that. 
It may be more than we bargained for.” 

“ I hope not,” shivered Lucile. “Tve been 
all warmed up over this trip the whole day 
through and now when we are actually on the 
way I feel cold as a clam and sort of creepy 
all over. Do — do you suppose it will be any¬ 
thing very dreadful?” 

“Why, no!” laughed Florence. “Far as 
feelings go mine have been just the opposite to 
yours. I didn’t want to go and felt that way all 
day, but now it would take all the conductors 
in the service to put me off the train.” 

With all the seriousness of a grown-up, the 


145 


A Strange Journey 

child purchased tickets for them all, and now 
gave them to the conductor without so much as 
suggesting their destination to the girls. 

“ I don’t know where I’m going but I’m on 
my way,” whispered Florence with a smile. 

“Seems strange, doesn’t it?” said Lucile. 

“ Sh,” warned Florence. 

The child had turned a smiling face toward 
them. 

“ I think it’s awfully good of you to come,” 
she beamed. “ It’s a long way and I’m afraid 
we’ll be late getting home, but you won’t have 
to do anything, not really, just go along with 
me. It’s a dreadfully lonesome place. There’s 
a long road you have to go over and the road 
crosses a river and there is woods on both sides 
of the river. Woods are awful sort of spooky 
at night, don’t you think so?” 

Florence smiled and nodded. Lucile shivered. 

“ I don’t mind the city,” the child went on, 
“ not any of it. There are always people every¬ 
where and things can’t be spooky there, but right 
out on the roads and in the woods and on 


146 


The Secret Mark 


beaches where the water goes wash-wash-wash 
at night, I don’t like that, do you? ” 

“ Sometimes I do,” said Florence. “ I think 
I’m going to like it a lot to-night.” 

“ Oh, are you? ” exclaimed the child. “ Then 
I’m glad, because it was awfully nice of you to 
come.” 

“ A long road, woods and a river,” Florence 
repeated in Lucile’s ear. “ Wherever can we 
be going? I supposed we would get off at one 
of the near-in suburbs.” 

“ Evidently,” said Lucile, forcing a smile, 
“ we are in for a night of it. I’m going to 
catch forty winks. Call me when we get to the 
road that crosses the river in the woods.” She 
bent her head down upon one hand and was 
soon fast asleep. 

She was awakened by a shake from Florence. 
“ We’re here. Come on, get off.” 

What they saw on alighting was not reassur¬ 
ing. A small red depot, a narrow, irregular 
platform, a square of light through which they 
saw a young man with a green shade over his 


A Strange Journey 147 

eyes bending before a table filled with telegraph 
instruments; this was all they saw. Beyond 
these, like the entrance to some huge, magical 
cave, the darkness loomed at them. 

The child appeared to know the way, even in 
the dark, for she pulled at Florence's sleeve 
as she whispered: 

“ This way please. Keep close to me.” 

There was not the least danger of the girls' 
failing to keep close, for, once they had passed 
beyond sight of that friendly square of light and 
the green-shaded figure, they were hopelessly 
lost. 

True, the darkness shaded off a trifle as their 
eyes became more accustomed to it; they could 
tell that they were going down a badly kept, 
sandy road; they could see the dim outline of 
trees on either side; but that was all. The 
trees seemed a wall which shut them in on either 
side. 

“ Trees are spooky at night," Lucile whis¬ 
pered as she gripped her companion's arm a 
little more tightly. 


148 The Secret Mark 

“ Where are we? ” Florence whispered. 

“ I couldn't guess.” 

“ Pretty far out. I counted five stops after 
the lights of the city disappeared. 

“ Listen.” 

“ What is it?” 

“ Water rushing along somewhere.” 

“ Might be the river. She said there was 
one.” 

“ Rivers rush like that in the mountains but 
not here. Must be the lake shore.” 

“ Hist — ” 

The child was whispering back at them. “ We 
are coming to the bridge. It’s a very long 
bridge, and spooky. I think we better tiptoe 
across it, but we mustn't run. The gallopin' 
goblins’ll come after us if we do; besides, there’s 
an old rusty sign on the bridge that savs, ‘ No 
trotting across the bridge.’ ” 

The next moment they felt a plank surface 
beneath their feet and knew they were on the 
bridge. It must have been a very ancient 
bridge. This road had never been remodelled 


A Strange Journey 149 

to fit the need of automobiles. The planks rat¬ 
tled and creaked in an ominous manner in spire 
of their tiptoeing. 

ki I wonder how much more there is of it,” 
Florence groaned in a whisper when they had 
gone on tiptoes for what seemed an endless 
space of time. “ If my toes don't break, I’m 
sure my shoes will.” 

As for Lucile, she was thinking her own 
thoughts. She was telling herself that if it 
were not for the fact that this night’s per¬ 
formance gave promise of being a link in the 
chain of circumstances which were to be used 
in dragging the gargoyle’s secret from its lair, 
she would demand that the child turn about and 
lead them straight back to the city. 

Since she had faith that somehow the mys¬ 
tery was to be solved and her many worries 
and perplexities brought to an end, she tiptoed 
doggedly on. And it was well that she did, 
for the events of this one night were destined 
to bring about strange and astounding revela¬ 
tions. She was not to see the light of day again 


150 


The Secret Mark 


before the gargoyle’s secret would be fully re¬ 
vealed, but had she known the series of thrilling 
events which would lead up to that triumphant 
hour, she would have shrunk back and whis¬ 
pered, “ No, no, I can’t go all that way.” 

Often and often we find this true in life; we 
face seemingly unbearable situations — some¬ 
thing is to happen to us, we are to go some¬ 
where, be something different, do some seem¬ 
ingly undoable thing and we say, “ We cannot 
endure it,” yet we pass through it as through 
a fog to come out smiling on the other side. 
We are better, happier and stronger for the 
experience. It was to be so with Lucile. 

The bridge was crossed at last. More dark 
and silent woods came to flank their path. 
Then out of the distance there loomed great 
bulks of darker masses 

“ Mountains, I’d say they were,” whispered 
Lucile, “ if it weren’t for the fact that I know 
there are none within five hundred miles.” 

For a time they trudged along in silence. 
Then suddenly Florence whispered: 


A Strange Journey 151 

i 

“Oh, I know! Dunes! Sand dunes! Now I 
know where we are. We are near the lake 
shore. I was out here somewhere for a week 
last summer. By day it’s wonderful; regular 
mountains of sand that has been washed up and 
blown up from the bed of the lake. Some of 
them are hundreds of feet above the level of 
the lake. There are trees growing on them and 
everything.” 

“ But what are we doing out here? ” 

“ I can’t guess. There is a wonderful beach 
everywhere and cottages here and there.” 

“ But it’s too late for summer cottages. They 
must all be closed.” 

“ Yes, of course they must.” 

Again they trudged on in silence. Now they 
left the road to strike away across the soft, 
yielding surface of the sand. They sank in to 
their ankles. Some of the sand got into their 
shoes and hurt their feet, but still they 
trudged on. 

The rush of waters on the shore grew louder. 

“ I love it,” Florence whispered. “ I like 


152 


The Secret Mark 


sleeping where I can hear the rush of water. 
I’ve slept beside the Arctic Ocean, the Behring 
Sea and the Pacific. I’ve slept by the shore 
of this old lake. Once in the Rocky Mountains 
I climbed to the timber-line and there slept for 
five nights in a tent where all night long you 
could hear the rush of icy water over rocks 
which were more like a stony stairway than 
the bed of a stream. It was grand. 

“ When I am sleeping where I can hear the 
rush of water I sometimes half awaken at night 
and imagine I am once more on the shore of the 
Arctic or in a tent at the timber-line of the 
Rockies.” 

While she was whispering this they felt the 
sand suddenly harden beneath their feet and 
knew that they had reached the beach. 

“ You know,” the child whispered suddenly 
and mysteriously back at them, “ I don’t like 
beaches at night. I lived by one when I was a 
very little girl. There was a very, Very old 
woman lived there too. She told me many ter¬ 
rible stories of the sea. And do you know, once 


153 


A Strange Journey 

she told me something that has made me afraid 

to be by the shore at night. It makes it spooky/’ 

* 

She suddenly seized Lucile’s arm with a grip 
that hurt while she whispered, “ That’s why I 
wanted you to come. 

“ She told me,” she went on, “ that old woman 
told me,” Lucile fancied she could see the child’s 
frightened eyes gleaming out of the night, 
“ about the men who were lost at sea; brave 
seamen who go on ships and brave soldiers too. 
Their bodies get washed all about on the bot¬ 
tom of the water; the fishes eat them and by 
and by they are all gone. But their souls can’t 
be eaten. No sir, no one can eat them. The 
old woman told me that.” 

The child paused. Her breath was coming 
quick. Her grip tightened on Lucile’s arm as 
she whispered: 

“ And sometimes I’m afraid one of their souls 
will get washed right up on the sand at night. 
That’s what frightens me so. What do you 
think it would look like? What do you? Would 
it be all yellow and fiery like a glowworm or 


154 


The Secret Mark 


would it be just white, like a sheet ?” 

“ Florence,” whispered Lucile, with a shiver, 
“ tell her to be quiet. She’ll drive me mad.” 

But there was no need. There is much cour¬ 
age to be gained by telling our secret fears to 
others. The child had apparently relieved her 
soul of a great burden, for she tramped on once 
more in silence. 

Several moments had passed when she sud¬ 
denly paused before some dark object which 
stood out above the sand. 

“ A boat,” whispered Lucile. 

“ If you’ll just help me,” said the child, “ we 
can push it into the water.” 

“ What for ? ” Florence asked. 

“ Why, to go in, of course. It’s the only 
way.” 

For a moment the two girls stood there un¬ 
decided. Then Florence whispered: 

“ Oh, come on. It’s not rough. Might as 
well see it through.” 


CHAPTER XVI 


NIGHT VISITORS 

A moment later they were listening to the 
creak of rusty oarlocks and the almost inaudible 
dip-dip of the oars as the child herself sent the 
boat out from the beach to bring it half about 
and skirt the shore. 

The boat was some sixteen feet long. A 
clinker-built craft, it was light and buoyant, but 
for all that, with three persons aboard, the row¬ 
ing of it was a tax on the strength of the child’s 
slender arms. To add to her troubles, the water 
began to rubber up a bit. Small waves came 
slap-slapping the boat’s side. Once a bit of 
spray broke in Florence’s face. 

“ Here,” she whispered, “ it’s too heavy for 
you. Let me have the oars, then you tell me 
which way to go.” 

155 


i 


156 


The Secret Mark 


“ Straight ahead, only not too close in. 
There's a wall." 

“A wall?" Lucile thought to herself. 
“ Sounds like a prison. There’s a parole camp 
out here somewhere. It can’t be! ’’ she shud¬ 
dered. “ No, of course not. What would that 
old man and child have to do with prisons?" 

Then, suddenly an ugly thought forced its 
way into her mind. Perhaps after all these two 
were members of a gang of robbers. Perhaps 
a member of the gang had been in prison and 
was at this moment in the parole camp. What 
if this turned out to be a jail-breaking ex¬ 
pedition? 

“ No, no!" she whispered as she shook her¬ 
self to free her mind of the thought. 

“ There’s the wall," whispered Florence, as 
a gray bulk loomed up to the right of them. 

They passed it in silence. To Lucile they 
seemed like marines running a blockade in time 
of war. 

But Florence was busy with other thoughts. 
That wall seemed vaguely familiar to her. It 


Night Visitors 157 

was as if she had seen it in a dream, yet could 
not recall the details of the dream. 

A storm was brewing off in the west. Now 
and then a distant flash of lightning lighted up 
the surrounding waters. Of a sudden one of 
these, more brilliant than the rest, lighted up 
the shore, which, at a word from the child, they 
were now nearing. What Florence saw was a 
small, artificially dredged buoy with a dock and 
large boathouse at the back’. 

Instantly what had been a dream became a 
reality. She had seen that wall and the little 
buoy and boathouse as well. Only the summer 
before she had spent two nights and a day with 
a party on the dunes. They had hired a motor 
boat and had skirted the shore. This place had 
been pointed out to her and described as the 
most elaborate and beautiful summer cottage on 
the shore. 

“ Why,” she whispered, with a sigh of re¬ 
lief, “ this is the summer cottage of your friend, 
R. Stanley Ramsey, Jr., the young man you 
saw at Frank Morrow's place and whom we 


158 


The Secret Mark 


saw later at the mystery cottage. This isn’t any 
brigandish thieving expedition. It is merely a 
business trip. Probably the old man has sold 
him one of his books.” 

Lucile’s first reaction to this news was intense 
relief. This was not a jail-breaking expedition; 
in fact, was not to be in any way an adventure. 
But the next instant doubt came. 

“ What would that young man be doing in a 
summer cottage at this time of year?” she de¬ 
manded. “ All the cottages must have been 
closed for nearly a month. Society flies back 
to the city in September. Besides, if it’s plain 
business, why all this slipping in at the lake 
front instead of passing through the gate?” 

Florence was silent at that. She had no 
answer. 

“ Does seem strange,” she mused. “ There’s 
a very high fence all about the place, but of 
course there must be a gate.” 

The next instant the boat grated on the sandy 
beach and they were all climbing out. 

Lucile shivered as she caught sight of a large, 


Night Visitors 159 

low, rambling building which lay well up from 
the shore. 

“ What next?” she whispered to herself. 

The storm was still rumbling in the west. 
The sky to the east was clear. Out from the 
black waters of the lake the moon was rolling. 
Its light suddenly brightened up the shore. The 
girls stared about them. 

Up from the beach a little way was an affair 
which resembled an Indian tepee. It was built 
of boards and covered with birch bark. Its 
white sides glimmered in the moonlight. 
Through the shadows of trees and shrubbery 
they made out a rustic pavilion and beyond that 
the cottage which was built in rustic fashion as 
befits a summer residence of a millionaire, al¬ 
though little short of a mansion. 

“ Wouldn’t you like to see the inside of it?” 
breathed Florence. “ I’ve always wondered 
what such a place was like.” 

“ Yes,” whispered Lucile, “ but I’d prefer 
daylight.” 

They had been following the child. She had 


160 The Secret Mark 

led them as far as a rustic arbor. Built of 
cedar poles with the bark left on, this presented 
itself as an inviting place to rest. 

“ You stay here,” the child whispered. “ I’ll 
come back.” 

She vanished into the shadows. 

“ Well! ” whispered Lucile. 

u What do you make of it?” Florence asked. 

“ Nothing yet.” 

“ Is someone here to meet her or is she 
entering the place to get something? ” 

“ Don’t know. I — ” 

Lucile stopped short. “ Did you see that?” 
she whispered tensely as she gripped her com¬ 
panion’s arm. 

“ What?” 

“ There was a flash of light in the right wing 
of the building, like the flicker of a match.” 

“ She can’t have reached there yet.” 

“ No.” 

“ Do you think we should warn her? I can’t 
help thinking she’s going to break into the 
place.” 


161 


Night Visitors 

“ If she is, she should be caught. If we 
think she is, perhaps we should notify the 
police. ,, 

“The police? In such a place? You forget 
that we are many miles from the city and two or 
three miles from even a railroad station. Guess 
we’ll have to see it through.” 

“Let’s do it then?” 

The two girls rose and began making their 
way stealthily in the direction the child had 
taken. 

Now and again they paused to listen. Once 
they heard a sound like the creaking of a door. 
Lucile caught a second flash of light. 

They paused behind two pine trees not ten 
feet from the side entrance. 

The wind rustled in the pine trees. The 
water broke ceaselessly on the shore. Other¬ 
wise all was silence. 

“ Creepy,” whispered Lucile. 

“ Ghostly,” Florence shivered. 

“ I believe that door’s ajar.” 

“ It is.” 


162 


The Secret Mark 


“ Let’s creep up close.” 

The next moment found them flattened 
against the wall beside the door. 

This door stood half open. Suddenly they 
caught a flash of light. Leaning far over to 
peer within, they saw the child bent over be¬ 
fore a huge bookcase. The room, half illumined 
by her flashlight, was a large lounging room. 
The trimmings were rustic and massive. 
Beamed ceiling and heavy beams along the 
walls were flanked by a huge fireplace at the 
back. The furniture was in keeping, massive 
mission oak with leather cushions on chairs. 

“ What a wonderful place! ” Florence whis¬ 
pered. “ What wouldn’t one give to have it 
for a study?” 

The child had taken three books from the 
shelves. All these she replaced. She was ex¬ 
amining the fourth when Lucile whispered, 
“ That’s the one she has come for.” 

“ Why?” 

“ The light fell full upon the inside of the 
cover. I saw the gargoyle there.” 


163 


Night Visitors 

The prediction proved a true one, for, after 
carefully closing the case, the child switched 
off the light. 

Scarcely realizing what they were doing, the 
girls lingered by the door. Then suddenly 
Lucile realized their position. “ She’ll be here 
in a second,” she whispered. 

They turned, but not quickly enough, for of a 
sudden a glare of light from a powerful electric 
flashlight blinded them while a masculine voice 
with a distinctlv vouthful ring to it demanded: 

“ Who’s there?” 

To their consternation, the girls felt the child 
bump into them as she backed away and there 
they all stood framed in a circle of light. 

The glaring light with darkness behind it 
made it impossible for them to see the new ar¬ 
rival but Lucile knew instantly from the voice 
that it was the millionaire’s son. 

For a full moment no one spoke. The tick- 
tock of a prodigious clock in one corner of the 
room sounded out like the ringing of a curfew. 

“ Oh! I see,” came at last in youthful tones 


164 


The Secret Mark 


from the corner; “just some girls. And pretty 
ones, too, I’ll he bound. Came to borrow a book, 
did you? Who let you in, I wonder. But never 
mind. Suppose you’re here for a week-end at 
one of the cottages and needed some reading 
matter. Rather unconventional way of getting 
it, but it’s all right. Just drop it in the mail box 
at the gate when you’re done with it.” 

The girls suddenly became conscious of the 
fact that the child was doing her best to push 
them out of the door. 

Yielding to her backward shoves, they sank 
away into the shadows and, scarcely believing 
their senses, found themselves apparently quite 
free to go their way. 

“ That,” breathed Florence, “ was awful de¬ 
cent of him.” 

“Decent?” Lucile exploded. “It — it was 
grand. Look here,” she turned almost savagely 
upon the child, “ you didn’t intend to give that 
book back but you’re going to do it. You’re 
going to put it in that mail box to-night.” 

“ Oh, no, I’m not,” the child said cheerfully. 


Night Visitors 165 

“ You — you’re not ?” Lucile stammered. 
“ What right have you to keep it? ” 

“What right has he? It does not belong to 
him. It belongs to Monsieur Le Bon.” 

“ Why, that’s nonsense! That — ” Lucile 
broke off suddenly. “ Look! ” she exclaimed. 
“ The boat’s gone! ” 

It was all too true. They had reached the 
beach where they had left the boat. It had 
vanished. 

“ So we are prisoners after all,” Florence 
whispered. 

“ And, and he was just making fun of us. 
He knew we couldn’t get away,” breathed 
Lucile, sinking hopelessly down upon the sand. 


CHAPTER XVII 


A BATTLE IN THE NIGHT 

“ Oh, brace up! ” exclaimed Florence, a note 
of impatience creeping into her voice. “ We’ll 
get out of this place some way. Perhaps the 
boat wasn’t taken. Perhaps it has — ” 

She stopped to stare away across the water. 

“ I believe it’s out there away down the beach. 
Look, Lucile. Look sharp.” 

The moon had gone behind a small cloud. As 
it came out they could see clearly the dark bulk 
of the boat dancing on the water, which was 
by now roughening up before the rising storm. 

“It’s out there,” exclaimed Florence. “We 
failed to pull it ashore far enough. There is 
a side sweep to the waves that carried it out. 
We must get it.” 

9 

“Yes, oh, yes, we must!” the child ex¬ 
claimed. “ It wasn’t mine; it was borrowed.” 


166 


A Battle In the Night 167 

“ You borrow a lot of things,” exclaimed 
Florence. 

“ Oh, no, indeed. Not many, not hardly any 
at all ” 

“But, Florence, how can we get it?” pro¬ 
tested Lucile. 

“ I’m a strong swimmer. I swam a mile once. 
The boat’s out only a few hundred yards. It 
will be easy.” 

“ Not with your clothes on.” 

Florence did not answer. She threw a glance 
toward the millionaire’s cottage. All was dark 
there. 

“ Here! ” Lucile felt a garment thrust into 
her hands, then another and another. 

“ Florence, you mustn’t.” 

“ It’s the only way.” 

A moment later Florence’s white body 
gleamed in the moonlight as she raced away 
down the beach to gain the point nearest the 
boat. 

To the listening ears of Lucile and the child 
there came the sound of a splash, then the slow 


168 


The Secret Mark 


plash, plash, plash of a swimmer’s strokes. 
Florence was away and swimming strong. But 
the wind from off a point had caught the boat 
and was carrying it out from shore, driving it 
on faster than she knew. 

Confident of her ability to reach the goal in 
a mere breath of time, she struck out at once 
with the splendid swing of the Australian crawl. 
Trained to the pink of perfection, her every 
muscle in condition, she laughed at the wavelets 
that lifted her up only to drop her down again 
and now and again to dash a saucy handful of 
spray in her face. She laughed and even 
hummed a snatch of an old sea song. She was 
as much at home in the water as in her room 
at the university. 

But now, as she got farther from the shore, 
the waves grew in size and force. They im¬ 
peded her progress. The shore was protected 
by a rocky point farther up the beach. She 
was rapidly leaving that protection. 

Throwing herself high out of the water, she 
looked for the boat. A little cry of consterna- 


169 


A Battle In the Night 

tion escaped her lips. She had expected to find 
it close at hand. It seemed as far away as 
when she had first seen it. 

“ It’s the wind off the point,” she breathed. 
“ It’s taking it out to sea. It — it’s going to be 
a battle, a real scrap.” 

Once more she struck out with the powerful 
stroke which carries one far but draws heavily 
upon his emergency fund of energy. 

For three full moments she battled the waves; 
then, all but breathless, she slipped over on her 
back to do the dead man’s float. 

“ Just for a few seconds. Got to save my 
strength, but I can’t waste time.” 

Now for the first time she realized that there 
was a possibility that she would lose this fight. 
The realization of what it meant if she did lose, 
swept over her and left her cold and numb. To 
go back was impossible; the wind and waves 
were too strong for that. To fail to reach the 
boat meant death. 

Turning back again into swimming position, 
she struck out once more. But this time 


f 


170 The Secret Mark 

it was not the crawl. That cost too much. 
With an easy, hand-over-hand swing which 
taxed the reserve forces little more than float¬ 
ing, she set her teeth hard, resolved slowly but 
surely to win her way to the boat and to safety. 

Moments passed. Long, agonizing moments. 

Lucile on the shore, by the gleam of a flare 
of lightning, caught now and then a glimpse of 
the swimmer. Little by little she became con¬ 
scious of the real situation. When it dawned 
upon her that Florence was in real peril, she 
thought of rushing to the cottage and calling 
to her assistance any who might be there. Then 
she looked at the bundle of clothing in her arms 
and flushed. 

“ She’d never forgive me,” she whispered. 

Florence, still battling, felt the spray break 
over her, but still kept on the even swing. Now 
and again, high on the crest of a wave, she 
saw the boat. She was cheered by the fact that 
each time it appeared to loom a little larger. 

“ Gaining,” she whispered. “ Fifty yards to 
go!” 


A Battle in the Night 171 

\ 

Again moments passed and again she whis¬ 
pered, “ Gaining. Thirty yards.” 

A third time she whispered, “ Twenty yards.” 

After that it was a quiet, muscle-straining, 
heart-breaking, silent battle, which caused her 
very senses to reel. Indeed at times she ap¬ 
peared conscious of only one thing, the 
mechanical swing of her arms, the kick, kick 
of her feet. They seemed but mechanical at¬ 
tachments run by some electrical power. 

When at last the boat loomed black and large 
on the crest of a wave just above her she had 
barely enough brain energy left to order her 
arms into a new motion. 

Striking upward with her right hand, she 
gripped the craft’s side. The next instant, with 
a superhuman effort, without overturning it she 
threw herself into the boat, there to fall panting 
across a seat. 

“ Wha — what a battle!” she gasped. “ But 
I won! I won! ” 

For two minutes she lay there motionless. 
Then, drawing herself stiffly up to a sitting 


172 


The Secret Mark 


position, she adjusted the oars to their oarlocks 
and, bending forward, threw all her magnificent 
strength into the business of battling the waves 
and bringing the boat safely ashore. 

There are few crafts more capable of riding 
a stormy sea than is a clinker-built rowboat. 
Light as a cork, it rides the waves like a seagull. 
Florence was not long in finding this out. Her 
trip ashore was one of joyous triumph. She 
had fought a hard physical battle and won. 
This was her hour of triumph. Her lips 
thrilled a “ Hi-le-hi-le-hi-lo ” which was heard 
with delight by her friends on land. Her bare 
arms worked like twin levers to a powerful 
engine, as she brought the boat around and shot 
it toward shore. 

A moment for rejoicing, two for dressing, 
then they all three tumbled into the boat to make 
the tossing trip round the wall to shore on the 
other side. 

For the moment the book tightly pressed 
under the child’s arm was forgotten. Florence 
talked of swimming and rowing. She talked 


173 


A Battle In the Night 

of plans for a possible summer's outing which 
included days upon the water and weeks within 
the forest primeval. 

As they left the boat on the beach, they could 
see that the storm was passing to the north of 
them. It had, however, hidden the moon. The 
path through the forest and across the river 
was engulfed in darkness. 

Once more the child prattled of haunts, 
spooks, and goblins, but for once Lucile's nerves 
were not disturbed. Her mind had gone back 
to the old problems, the mystery of the gargoyle 
and all the knotty questions which had come to 
be associated with it. 

This night a new mystery had thrust its head 
up out of the dark and an old theory had been 
exploded. She had thought that the young 
millionaire's son might be in league with the 
old man and the child in carrying away and 
disposing of old and valuable books, but here 
was the child coming out to this all but deserted 
cottage at night to take a book from the young 
man's library. 


174 


The Secret Mark 


“ He hasn't a thing in the world to do with 
it," she told herself. “ He — " 

She paused in her perplexing problem to grip 
her companion’s arm and whisper, “ What was 
that?" 

They were nearing the plank bridge. She 
felt certain that she heard a footstep upon it. 
But now as she listened she heard nothing but 
the onrush of distant waters. 

“ Just your nerves," answered Florence. 

“ It was not. I was not thinking of the 
child’s foolish chatter. I was thinking of our 
problem, of the gargoyle’s secret. Someone is 
crossing the bridge." 

Even as she spoke, as if in proof of her 
declaration, there came a faint pat-pat-pat, as 
of someone moving on the bridge on tiptoe. 

“Someone is shadowing us,’’ Lucile whispered. 

“ Looks that wav." 

* 

“Who is it?" 

“ Someone from the cottage perhaps. Watch¬ 
ing to see what the child does with the book. 
She must take it back." 


175 


A Battle In the Night 

“ Yes, she must. ,, 

“ It might be/’ and here even stout-hearted 
Florence shuddered, “ it might be that some¬ 
one had shadowed us all the way from the city.” 

“ The one who followed me the night I got 
caught in that wretched woman’s house, and 
other times?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ But he couldn’t have gone all the way, not 
up to the cottage. He couldn’t get through the 
fence and there was no other boat.” 

“ Well, anyway, whoever it is, we must go on. 
Won’t do any good standing here shivering.” 

Once more they pressed into the dark and 
once more Lucile resumed her attempt to dis¬ 
entangle the many problems which lay before 
her. 


V. 


CHAPTER XVIII 

FRANK MORROW JOINS IN THE HUNT 

That she had reached the limit of her re¬ 
sources, her power to reason and to endure, 
Lucile knew right well. To go on as she had 
been day after day, each day adding some new 
responsibility to her already overburdened 
shoulders, was to invite disaster. It was not 
fair to others. The set of Shakespeare, the 
volume of Portland charts, the hand-bound 
volume from the bindery and this book just 
taken from the summer home of the millionaire, 
were all for the moment in the hands of the old 
man and the child. How long would they re¬ 
main there? No one could tell save the old 
man and perhaps the child. 

That she had had no part whatever in the 
taking of any of them, unless her accompanying 
of the child on this trip might be called taking 

176 


Frank Morrow Joins in the Hunt 17Z 

a part, she knew quite well. Yet one is re¬ 
sponsible for what one knows. 

“ I should have told what I knew about the 
set of Shakespeare in the beginning/’ she chided 
herself. “ Then there would have been no other 
problems. All the other books would be at this 
moment in their proper places and the old man 
and child would be — ” 

She could not say the words, “ in jail.” It 
was too terrible to contemplate! That man 
and that child in jail! And, yet, she suddenly 
remembered the child’s declaration that she 
would not return the book to the summer cot¬ 
tage. She had said the book belonged to the 
old man. Perhaps, after all, it did. She had 
seen the millionaire’s son in the mystery room 
talking to the old man. Perhaps, after all, he 
had borrowed the book and the child had been 
sent for it. There was some consolation in that 
thought. 

\ 

“ But that does not solve any of the other 
problems,” she told herself, “and, besides, if 
she has a right to the book, why all this creep- 


178 


The Secret Mark 


ing up to the cottage by night by way of the 
water. And why did he assume that she was 
borrowing it?” 

And so, after all her speculation, she found 
herself just where she had left off; the tangle 
was no less a tangle than before. 

“ Question is,” she whispered to herself, “ am 
I going to go to the police or to the university 
authorities with the story and have these 
mysterious people arrested, or am I not?” 

They reached the station just as the last train 
was pulling in. Florence and the child had 
climbed aboard and Lucile had her hand on the 
rail when she saw a skulking figure emerge from 
the shadows of the station. The person, who¬ 
ever he might be, darted down the track to 
climb upon the back platform just as the train 
pulled out. 

“ That,” Lucile told herself, “ is the person 
who crossed the bridge ahead of us. He is 
spying on us. I wonder who he is and what 
he knows.” A cold chill swept over her as if 
a winter blast had passed down the car. 


Frank Morrow Joins in the Hunt 179 

When Florence had been told of what Lucile 
had seen, she suggested that they go back and 
see who the man was. 

“ What's the use?” said Lucile. “ We can’t 
prove that he’s following us. It would only get 
us into another mess and goodness knows we’re 
in enough now.” 

So, with the mystery child curled up fast 
asleep in a seat before them, hugging the newly 
acquired book as though it were a doll, they 
rattled back toward the city. 

In spite of the many problems perplexing her, 
Lucile soon fell asleep. Florence remained to 
keep vigil over her companion, the child and 
the supposedly valuable book. 

They saw nothing more of the mysterious 
person who had apparently been following them. 
Arrived at the city, they were confronted with 
the problem of the immediate possession of the 
latest of the strangely acquired volumes. 
Should the child be allowed to carry it to the 
mysterious cottage or should they insist on 
taking it to their room for safe keeping? They 


180 


The Secret Mark 


talked the matter over in whispers just before 
arriving at their station. 

“ If you attempt to make her give it up,” 
Florence whispered, “ she’ll make a scene. She’s 
just that sort of a little minx.” 

“ I suppose so,” said Lucile wearily. 

“ Might as well let her keep it. It’s as safe 
as any of the books are at that cottage, and, 
really, it’s not as much our business as you 
keep thinking it is. We didn’t take the book. 
True, we went along with her, but she would 
have gone anyway. We’re not the guardians of 
all the musty old books in Christendom. Let’s 
forget at least this one and let that rich young 
man get it back as best he can. He took the 
chance in allowing her to take it away.” 

Lucile did not entirely agree to all this but 
was too tired to resist her companion’s logic, 
so the book went away under the child’s arm. 

After a very few hours of restless sleep, 
Lucile awoke with one resolve firmly implanted 
in her mind: She would take Frank Morrow’s 
book back to him and place it in his hand, then 


Frank Morrow Joins in the Hunt 181 

she would tell him the part of the story that 
he did not already know. After that she would 
attempt to follow his advice in the matter. 

With the thin volume of “The Compleat 
Angler’’ in the pocket of her coat, she made her 
way at an early hour to his shop. He had 
barely opened up for the day. No customers 
were yet about. Having done his nine holes of 
golf before coming down and having done them 
exceedingly well, he was feeling in a particularly 
good humor. 

“ Well, my young friend,” he smiled, “ what 
is it I may do for you this morning? Why! 
Why! ” he exclaimed, turning her suddenly 
about to the light, “ you’ve been losing sleep 
about something. Tut! Tut! That will never 
do.” 

She smiled in spite of herself. Here was a 
young-old man who was truly a dear. “ Why 
I came,” she smiled again, as she drew the 
valuable book from her pocket, “ to return your 
book and to tell you just how I came to have it.” 

“ That sounds interesting.” Frank Morrow, 


182 


The Secret Mark 


rubbing his hands together as one does who is 
anticipating a good yarn, then led her to a chair. 

Fifteen minutes later, as the story was 
finished, he leaned back in his chair and gave 
forth a merry chuckle as he gurgled, “Fine! 
Oh, fine! That’s the best little mystery story 
Fve heard in a long time. It’s costing me two 
hundred dollars, but I don’t begrudge it, not a 
penny of it. The yarn’s really worth it. Be¬ 
sides, I shall make a cool hundred on the book 
still, which isn’t so bad.” 

“Two hundred dollars!” exclaimed Lucile 
in great perplexity. 

“ Yes, the reward for the return of the book. 
Now that the mystery is closed and the book 
returned, I shall pay it to you, of course.” 

“ Oh, the reward,” she said slowly. “ Yes, 
of course. But, really, the mystery is not ended 
— it has only just begun.” 

“ As you like it,” the shopkeeper smiled back. 
“ As matters go, I should call the matter closed. 
I have a book stolen. You recover it and are 
able to tell me that the persons who stole it are 


Frank Morrow Joins in the Hunt 183 

an old man, too feeble to work, and an innocent 
child. You are able to put your finger on them 
and to say, ‘ These are the persons/ I can have 
them arrested if I choose. I too am an old 
man; not so old as your Frenchman, yet old 
enough to know something of what he must 
feel, with the pinch of age and poverty dragging 
at the tail of his coat. I happen to love all 
little children and to feel their suffering quite 
as much as they do when they must suffer. I 
do not choose to have those two people arrested. 
That ends the affair, does it not? You have 
your reward; I my book; they go free, not be¬ 
cause justice says they should but because a 
soft heart of an old man says they must.” He 
smiled and brushed his eyes with the back of 
his hands. 

Having nothing to say, Lucile sat there in 
silence. 

Presently Frank Morrow began, “ You think 
this is unusual because vou do not know how 
common it is. You have never run a bookstore. 
You would perhaps be a little surprised to have 


184 


The Secret Mark 


me tell you that almost every day of the year 
some book, more or less valuable, is stolen, 
either from a library or from a bookshop. It 
is done, I suppose, because it seems so very 
easy. Here is a little volume worth, we will 
say, ten dollars. It will slip easily into your 
pocket. When the shopkeeper is not looking, 
it does slip in. Then again, when he is not 
paying any particular attention to you, you 
slip out upon the street. You drink in a few 
breaths of fresh air, cast a glance to right and 
left of you, then walk away. You think the 
matter is closed. In reality it has just begun. 

“ In the first place, you probably did not take 
the book so you might have it for your library. 
Collectors of rare books are seldom thieves. 
They are often cranks, but honest cranks. More 
books are stolen by students than by any other 
class of people. They have a better knowledge 
of the value of books than the average run of 
folks, and they more often need the money to 
be obtained from the sale of such books. 

“ Nothing seems easier than to take a book 


Frank Morrow Joins in the Hunt 185 

from one store, to carry it to another store six 
or eight miles away and sell it, then to wash 
your hands of the whole matter. Nothing in 
reality is harder. All the bookstore keepers of 
every large city are bound together in a loosely 
organized society for mutual protection. The 
workings of their ‘underground railways’ are 
swifter and more certain than the United States 
Secret Service. The instant I discover that one 
of my books has been carried off, I sit down 
and put the name of it on a multigraph. This 
prints the name on enough post cards to go to 
all the secondhand bookshops in the city. When 
the shopkeepers get these cards, they read the 
name and know the book has been stolen. If 
they have already bought it, they start a search 
for the person who sold it to them. They 
generally locate him. If the book has not yet 
been disposed of, every shopkeeper is constantly 
on the lookout for it until it turns up. So,” he 
smiled, “ you see how easy it is to steal books. 

“ And yet they will steal them,” he went on. 
“ Why,” he smiled reminiscently, “ not so long 


186 The Secret Mark 

ago I had the same book stolen twice within 
the week.” 

“ Did you find out who it was? ” 

“ In both cases, at once.” 

“ Different people.” 

“ Entirely different; never met, as far as I 
know. The first one was an out and out rascal; 
he wanted the money for needless luxuries. We 
treated him rough. Very rough! The other 
was a sick student who, we found, had used 
the money to pay carfare to his home. I did 
not even trouble to find out where his home was; 
just paid the ten dollars to the man who had 
purchased the book from him and charged it 
off on mv books. That,” he stroked his chin 
thoughtfully, “ that doesn’t seem like common 
sense — or justice, either, yet it is the way men 
do; anyway it's the way I do.” 

Again there was silence. 

“ But,” Lucile hesitated, “ this case is dif¬ 
ferent. The mystery still exists. Why does 
Monsieur Le Bon want the books? He has 
not sold a single volume. Something must be 


Frank Morrow Joins In the Hunt 187 

done about the books from the university, the 
Scientific Library and the Bindery.” 

“ That’s true,” said Frank Morrow thought¬ 
fully. “ There are angles to the case that are 
interesting, very interesting. Mind if I 
smoke ? ” 

Lucile shook her head. 

“ Thanks.” He filled and lighted his pipe. 
“ Mind going over the whole story again?” 

“ No, not a bit.” 

She began at the beginning and told her story. 
This time he interrupted her often and it 
seemed that, as he asked question after ques¬ 
tion, his interest grew as the story progressed. 

“ Now I’ll tell you what to do,” he held up 
a finger for emphasis as she concluded. He 
leaned far forward and there was a light of 
adventure in his eye. “ I’ll tell you what you 
do. Here’s a hundred dollars.” He drew a 
roll of bills from his pocket. “ You take this 
money and buy yourself a ticket to New York. 
You can spare the week-end at least. When 
you get to New York, go to Burtnoe’s Book 


188 


The Secret Mark 


Store and ask for Roderick Vining. He sold 
me that copy of The Compleat Angler.’ I 
sent out a bid for such a book when I had a 
customer for it and he was one of two who re¬ 
sponded. His book was the best of the two, so 
I took it. He is in charge of fine binding in 
the biggest book store in his city. They deal 
in new books, not secondhand ones, but he 
dabbles in rare volumes on the side. Tell him 
that I want to know where he got the book; 
take the book along, to show you are the real 
goods. When he tells you where, then find 
that person if you can and ask him the same 
question. Keep going until you discover some¬ 
thing. You may have to hunt up a half dozen 
former owners but sooner or later you will come 
to an end, to the place where that book crossed 
the sea. And unless I miss my guess, that’s 
mighty important. 

“ I am sorry to have to send you — wish I 
could go myself,” he said after a moment’s 
silence. “ It will be an interesting hunt and may 
even be a trifle dangerous, though I think not.” 


Frank Morrow Joins In the Hunt 189 

“ But this money, this hundred dollars?” 
Lucile hesitated, fingering the bills. 

“Oh, that?” he smiled. “That’s the last of 
my profit on the little book. We’ll call that de¬ 
voted to the cause of science or lost books or 
whatever you like. 

“ But,” he called after her, as she left the 
shop, “ be sure to keep your fingers tight 
closed around the little book.” 

This, Lucile was destined to discover, was 
not so easily done. 


CHAPTER XIX 


LUCILE SOLVES NO MYSTERY 

Buried deep beneath the blankets of lower 9, 
car 20, bound for New York, Lucile for a time 
that night allowed her thoughts to swing along 
with the roll of the Century Limited. She 
found herself puzzled at the unexpected turn 
of events. She had never visited New York and 
she welcomed the opportunity. There was more 
to be learned by such a visit, brief though it was 
bound to be, than in a whole month of poring 
over books. But why was she going? What 
did Frank Morrow hope to prove by any dis¬ 
coveries she might make regarding the former 
ownership of the book she carried in her pocket? 

She had never doubted but that the aged 

Frenchman when badlv in need of funds had 

* 

sold the book to some American. That he 
should have repented of the transaction and 

190 


Lucile Solves No Mystery 191 

had wished the book back in his library, seemed 
natural enough. Lacking funds to purchase it 
back, he had found another way. That the 
ends justified the means Lucile very much 
doubted, yet there was something to be said for 
this old man because of his extreme age. It 
might be that he had reached the period of his 
second childhood and all things appeared to 
belong to him. 

“ But here,” she told herself, rising to a sit¬ 
ting posture and trying to stare out into the 
fleeing darkness, “ here we suddenly discover 
that the book came from New York. What is 
one to make of that? Very simple, in a way, 
I suppose. This aged Frenchman enters 
America by way of New York. He needs funds 
to pay his passage and the freight on his books 
to Chicago, so he sells one or two books to pro¬ 
cure the money. Yet I doubt if that would be 
Frank Morrow’s solution of the problem. 
Surely he would not sacrifice a hundred dollars 
to send me to New York merely to find out 
who the man was to whom the old Frenchman 


192 


The Secret Mark 


had sold the book. He must think there is more 
to it than that — and perhaps there is. Ho, 
well,” she sighed, as she settled back on her 
pillow, “ let that come when it comes. I am 
going to see New York — N-e-w Y-o-r-k —” 
she spelled it out; “ and that is a grand and 
glorious privilege.” 

The next moment the swing of the Century 
Limited as it click-clicked over the rails and the 
onward rush of scenery meant nothing to her. 
She was fast alseep. 

Morning found her much refreshed. After 
a half hour in the washroom and another in 
the diner, over coffee and toast, she felt equal 
to the facing of any events which might chance 
to cross her path that day. There are days in 
all our lives that are but blanks. They pass and 
we forget them forever. There are other days 
that are so pressed full and running over with 
vivid experience that every hour, as we look 
back upon it, seems a “ crowded hour.” Such 
days we never forget, and this was destined to 
be such a day in the life of Lucile. 


Lucile Solves No Mystery 193 

Precisely at nine o'clock she was at the door 
of Burtnoe’s Book Store. To save time she had 
taken a taxi. The clerk who unfastened the 
door looked at her curiously. When she asked 
for Roderick Vining, she was directed by a nod 
to the back corner of the room. 

She made her way into a square alcove where 
an electric light shining brightly from the ceil¬ 
ing brought out a gleam of real gold from the 
backs of thousands of books done in fine 
bindings. 

Bending over a desk telephone was the form 
of a tall, slender-shouldered man. 

“Are — are you Roderick Vining?” she 
faltered, at the same time drawing “The Com- 
pleat Angler” half out of her pocket. 

His only answer was to hold up one long, 
tapering finger as a signal for silence. Some¬ 
one was speaking at the other end of the wire. 

With burning cheeks and a whispered apology, 
the girl sank back into the shadows. Her cour¬ 
age faltered. This was her introduction to 
New York; she had made a faux pas as her 


194 


The Secret Mark 


first move; and this man, Roderick Vining, was 
no ordinary person, she could see that. There 
was time to study him now. His face was long, 
his features thin, but his forehead was high. 
He impressed her, seated though he was, as one 
who was habitually in a hurry. Pressing mat¬ 
ters were, without doubt, constantly upon his 
mind. 

Now he was speaking. She could not avoid 
hearing what he was saying without leaving the 
alcove, and he had not requested her to do that. 

“ Why, yes, Mrs. Nelson,” he was saying, 
“ we can get the set for you. Of course you 
understand that is a very special, de luxe edi¬ 
tion; only three hundred sets struck off, then 
the plates destroyed. The cost would be con¬ 
siderable.” 

Again he pressed the receiver to his ear. 

“ Why, I should say, three thousand dollars; 
not less, certainly. All right, madam, I will 
order the set at once. Your address? Yes, 
certainly, I have it Thank you. Good-bye.” 

He placed the receiver on its hook with as 


Lucile Solves No Mystery 195 

little noise as if it had been padded, then turned 
to Lucile. “ Pardon me; you wanted to see me? 
Sorry to keep you waiting.” 

“ Frank Morrow sent me here to ask you 
where you purchased this book.” She held the 
thin volume out for his inspection. 

He did not appear to look at it at all. In¬ 
stead, he looked her squarely in the eye. 
“ Frank Morrow sent you all the way from 
Chicago that you might ask me that question? 
How extraordinary! Why did he not wire me? 
He knows I would tell him.” A slight frown 
appeared on his forehead. 

“ I — I am — ” she was about to tell him 
that she was to ask the next person where he 
got it, but thinking better of it said instead, 
“ That is only part of my mission to New York. 
Won’t you please look at the book and answer 
my question?” 

Still he did not look at the book but to her 
utter astonishment said, while a smile illumined 
his face, “ I bought that copy of The Compleat 
Angler’ right here in this alcove.” 


196 


The Secret Mark 


“ From whom? ” she half whispered. 

“ From old Dan Whitner, who keeps a book¬ 
shop back on Walton place.” 

“ Thank you,” she murmured, much relieved. 
Here was no mystery; one bookshop selling a 
book to another. There was more to it. She 
must follow on. 

“ I suppose,” he smiled, as if reading her 
thoughts, “ that you'd like me to tell you where 
Dan got it, but that I cannot answer. You must 
ask him yourself. His address is 45 Walton 
place. It is ten minutes’ walk from here; three 
blocks to your right as you leave our door, then 
two to your left, a block and a half to your left 
again and you are there. The sign’s easy to 
read — just ‘ Dan Whitner, Books.’ Dan’s a 
prince of a chap. He’ll do anything for a girl 
like you; would for anyone, for that matter. 
Ever been to New York before?” he asked 
suddenly. 

“ No.” 

“Come alone?” 

“ Yes.” 


Lucile Solves No Mystery 197 

He whistled softly to himself, “ You west¬ 
ern girls will be the death of us.” 

“ When there’s some place that needs to be 
gone to we go to it,” she smiled half defiantly. 
“ There’s nothing so terrible about that, is 
there?” * 

“ No, I suppose not,” he admitted. “ Well, 
you go see Dan. He’ll tell you anything he 
knows.” With that he turned to his work. 

Lucile, however, was not ready to go. She 
had one more question to ask, even though it 
might be another faux pas. 

“Would you — would you mind telling me 
how you knew what book I had when you did 
not see it ? ” she said. 

“ I did see it,” he smiled, as if amused. “ I 
didn’t see it when you expected me to see it, 
that was all. I saw it long before — saw it 
when I was at the phone. It’s a habit we book 
folks have of doing* one thing with our ears 
and another with our eyes. We have to or we’d 
never get through in a day if we didn’t. Your 
little book protruded from your pocket. I knew 


198 


The Secret Mark 


you were going to say something about it; per¬ 
haps offer to sell it, so I looked at it. Simple, 
wasn’t it? No great mystery about it. Hope 
your other mysteries will prove as simple. Got 
any friends in New York?” 

“ No.” 

He shook his head in a puzzled manner, but 
allowed her to leave the room without further 
comment. 


CHAPTER XX 


“ THAT WAS THE MAN” 

Dan Whitner was a somewhat shabby like¬ 
ness of Roderick Vining; that is, he was a gray¬ 
haired, stoop-shouldered, young-old man who 
knew a great deal about books. His shelves 
were dusty, so too was a mouse-colored jacket. 

Yes, he “ remembered the book quite well.” 
Lucile began to get the notion that once one of 
these book wizards set eyes upon an ancient 
volume he never forgot it. 

“ Strange case, that,” smiled Dan as he 
looked at her over his glasses. 

“ Ah! Here is where I learn something of 
real importance,” was the girl’s mental com¬ 
ment. 

“ You see,” Dan went on, “ I sometimes have 
dinner with a very good friend who also loves 
books — the Reverend Dr. Edward Edwards. 

199 



200 


'1 he Secret Mark 


Dinner, on such occasions, is served on a tea- 
wagon in his library; sort of makes a fellow feel 
at home, don’t you know? 

“ Well, one of these evenings when the good 
doctor had an exceptional roast of mutton and 
a hubbard squash just in from the farm and a 
wee bit of something beside, he had me over. 
While we waited to be served I was glancing 
over his books and chanced to note the book you 
now have in vour hand. ‘ I see/ I said to him 
jokingly, ‘ that you have come into a legacy/ 

“ ‘ Why, no/ he says looking up surprised. 
‘ Why should you think that? ’ 

“ I pointed to this little copy of The Com- 
pleat Angler’ and said, ‘ Only them as are very 
rich can afford to possess such as this one/ 

“ He looked at me in surprise, then smiled 
as he said, ‘ I did pay a little too much for it, 
I guess, but the print was rather unusual; be¬ 
sides, it’s a great book. I don’t mind admitting 
that it cost me fifteen dollars/ 

“ ‘ Fifteen dollars! ’ I exploded. 

“ ‘ Got trimmed, did I?’ he smiled back. 


“That Was the Man” 


201 


* Well, you know the old saying about the clergy, 
no business heads on them, so we’ll let it stand 
at that.’ 

“‘Trimmed nothing!’ I fairly yelled. ‘The 
book’s a small fortune in itself; one of those 
rare finds. Why — I’d venture to risk six 
hundred dollars on it myself without opening 
the covers of it. It’s a first edition or I’m not 
a book seller at all.’ 

“ ‘ Sold! ’ he cried in high glee. ‘ There are 
three families in my parish who are in dire 
need. This book was sent, no doubt, to assist 
me in tiding them over.’ 

“ So that’s how I came into possession of the 
book. I sold it to Vining at Burtnoe’s, as you 
no doubt know.” 

“ But,” exclaimed Lucile breathlessly, feeling 
that the scent was growing fresher all the while, 
“ from whom did the doctor purchase it at so 
ridiculous a price?” 

“From a fool bookstorekeeper of course; one 
of those upstarts who know nothing at all about 
books; who handle them as pure merchandise, 


202 


The Secret Mark 


purchased at so much and sold for forty and 
five per cent more, regardless of actual value. 

He’d bought it to help out some ignorant 

% 

foreigner, a Spaniard I believe. He’d paid ten 
dollars and had been terribly pleased within 
himself when he made five on the deal.” 

“ Who was he?” Lucile asked eagerly, “ and 
where was his shop? ” 

“ That I didn’t trouble to find out. Very 
likely he’s out of business by now. Such shops 
are like grass in autumn, soon die down and 
the snow covers them up. The doctor could 
tell you though. I’ll give you his address and 
you may go and ask him.” 

The short afternoon was near spent and the 
shades of night were already falling when at 
last Lucile entered the shop of the unfortunate 
bookseller who had not realized the value of the 
little book. Lunch had delayed her, then the 
doctor had been out making calls and had kept 
her waiting for two hours. The little shop had 
been hard to find, but here at last she was. 

A pitiful shop it was, possessing but a few 


“That Was the Man ” 


203 


hundred volumes and presided over by a grimy- 
fingered man who might but the day before 
have been promoted from the garbage wagon 
so far as personal appearance was concerned. 
Indeed, as Lucile looked over the place she was 
seized with the crazy notion that the whole place, 
books, shelves and proprietor, had but recently 
climbed down from the junk cart. 

“ And yet,” she told herself, “ it was from 
this very heap of dusty paper and cardboard 
that this precious bit of literature which I have 
in my pocket, was salvaged. I must not for¬ 
get that. 

“ I believe,” she told herself with an excited 
intake of breath, "that I am coming close to 
the end of my search. All day I have been 
descending step by step; first the wonderful 
Burtnoe’s Book Store with all its magnificence 
and its genius of a bookman, then Dan Whitner 
and the doctor, now this place, and then perhaps, 
whoever the person is who sold the book to this 
pitiful specimen of a bookseller.” 

Her heart skipped a beat as the bookman. 


204 The Secret Mark 

having caught sight of her, began to amble in 
her direction. 

She made her question short and to the point. 
“ Where did you get this book? ” 

“That book?” he took it and turned it over 
in his hand. He scratched his head. “ That, 
why that book must have been one I bought 
with a lot at an auction sale last week. Want’a 
buy it?” 

“No. No!” exclaimed Lucile, seizing the 
book. “ It’s not your book. It is mine but you 
had it once and sold it. What I wish to know 
is, where did you get it? ” 

Three customers were thumbing through the 
books. One seated at a table turned and looked 
up. His face impressed the girl at once as 
being particularly horrible. Dark featured, 
hook-nosed, with a blue birthmark covering half 
his chin, he inspired her with an almost un¬ 
controllable fear. 

“ We — we — ” she faltered “ — may we 
not step back under the light where you can see 
the book better? ” 


“That Was the Man” 


205 


The shopkeeper followed her in stolid silence. 

It was necessary for her to tell him the whole 
story of the purchase and sale of the book be¬ 
fore he recognized it as having once been on 
his shelves. 

“ Oh, yes,” he exclaimed at last. “ Made five 
dollars on her. Thought I had made a mis¬ 
take, but didn’t; not that time I didn’t. Where’d 
I get her? Let’s see?” 

As he stood there attempting to recall the 
name of the purchaser, Lucile’s gaze strayed 
to an opening between two rows of books. In¬ 
stantly her eyes were caught as a bird’s by a 
serpent, as she found herself looking into a pair 
of cruel, crafty, prying eyes. They vanished in¬ 
stantly but left her with a cold chill running 
up her spine. It was the man who had been 
seated at the table, but why had he been spy¬ 
ing? She had not long to wait before a possible 
solution was given her. 

“ I know! ” exclaimed the shopkeeper at this 
instant, “ I bought it from a foreigner. Bought 
two others from him, too. Made good money 


206 


The Secret Mark 


on ’em all, too. Why! ” he exclaimed suddenly, 
“ he was in here when you came. Had another 
book under his arm, he did; wanted to sell it, 
I judge. I was just keeping him waiting a 
little so’s he wouldn’t think I wanted it too bad. 
If they think you want their books bad they 
stick for a big price.” His voice had dropped 
to a whisper; his eyes had narrowed to what 
was meant to be a very wise-meaning expression. 

“ May be here yet.” He darted around the 
stand of books. 

“ That’s him just going out the door. Hey, 
you!” he shouted after the man. 

Paying not the least attention, the person 
passed out, slamming the door after him. 

Passing rapidly down the room, the proprietor 
poked his head out of the door and shouted 
twice. After listening for a moment he backed 
into the room and shut the door. 

“ Gone,” he muttered. “ Worse luck to me. 
Sometimes we wait too long and sometimes not 
long enough. Now some other lucky dog will 
get that book.” 


“That Was the Man” 


207 


In the meantime Lucile had glanced about 
the shop. Two persons were reading beneath 
a lamp in the corner. Neither was the man 
with the birthmark. It was natural enough to 
conclude that it was he who had left the room. 

“ Did he have a birthmark on his chin, this 
man you bought the book from?” she asked 
as the proprietor returned. 

“ Yes, ma’am, he did.” 

“ Then I saw him here a moment ago. When 
is he likely to return?” 

“ That no one can telL Perhaps to-morrow, 
perhaps never. He has not been here before 
in three months. Did you wish to speak with 
him?” 

Lucile shivered. “ Well, perhaps not,” she 
half whispered. 

“ Huh! ” grunted the proprietor suddenly, 
“ what’s this? Must be the book he brought. 
He’s forgotten it. Now he is sure to be back.” 

Lucile was rather of the opinion that he 
would not soon return. She believed that there 
had been some trickery about the affair of these 


208 


The Secret Mark 


valuable books which were being sold to the 
cheapest book dealer in the city for a very 
small part of their value. “ Perhaps they were 
stolen/’ she told herself. At once the strange¬ 
ness of the situation came to her; here she was 
with a book in her possession which had been 
but recently stolen from Frank Morrow’s book 
shop by a girl and now circumstances seemed 

to indicate that this verv book had been stolen 

* 

by some person who had sold it to this book- 
monger, who had passed it on to the doctor who 
had sold it to Dan Whitner, who had sold it 
to Roderick Vining, who had sold it to Frank 
Morrow. 

“ Sounds like the house that Jack built/’ she 
whispered to herself. “ But then I suppose 
some valuable books have been stolen many 
times. Frank Morrow said one of his had been 
stolen twice within a week by totally different 
persons.” 

Turning to the shopkeeper, she asked if she 
might see the book that had been left behind. 

As she turned back the cover a low exclama- 


“That Was the Man” 


209 


tion escaped her lips. In the corner of that 
cover was the same secret mark as had been 
in all the mystery books, the gargoyle and the 
letter L. 

Hiding her surprise as best she could, she 
handed the book to the man with the remark: 

“ Of course you cannot sell the book, since it 
is not your own?” 

“ I’d chance it.” 

“ I’ll give you ten dollars for it. If he re¬ 
turns and demands more, I will either pay the 
price or return the book. I’ll give you my 
address.” 

“ Done! ” he exclaimed. “ I don’t think 
you’ll ever hear from me. I’ll give him seven 
and he’ll be glad enough to get it. Pretty good, 
eh?” he rubbed his hands together gleefully. 
“ Three dollars clean profit and not a cent in¬ 
vested any of the time.” 

Like the ancient volume on fishing, this newly 
acquired book was small and thin, so without 
examining its contents she thrust it beside the 
other in the large pocket of her coat. 


210 


The Secret Mark 


“ I suppose I oughtn’t to have done it,” she 
whispered to herself as she left the shop, ‘'but 
if I hadn’t, he’d have sold it to the first cus¬ 
tomer. It’s evidence in the case and besides it 
may be valuable.” 

A fog hung over the city. The streets were 
dark and damp. Here and there a yellow light 
struggled to pierce the denseness of the gloom. 
As she turned to the right and walked down the 
street, not knowing for the moment quite what 
else to do, she fancied that a shadow darted 
down the alley to her left 

“ Too dark to tell. Might have been a dog 
or anything,” she murmured. Yet she shivered 
and quickened her pace. She was in a great, 
dark city alone and she was going — where? 
That she did not know. The day’s adventures 
had left her high and dry on the streets of a 
city as a boat is left by the tide on the sand. 


CHAPTER XXI 


A THEFT IN THE NIGHT 

There is no feeling of desolation so complete 
as that which sweeps over one who is utterly 
alone in a great city at night. The desert, the 
Arctic wilderness, the heart of the forest, the 
boundless sea, all these have their terrors, but 
for downright desolation give me the heart of 
a strange city at night. 

Hardly had Lucile covered two blocks on her 
journey from the book shop when this feeling 
of utter loneliness engulfed her like a bank of 
fog. Shuddering, she paused to consider, and, 
as she did so, fancied she caught the bulk of a 
shadow disappearing into a doorway to the 
right of her. 

“ Where am I and where am I to go?” she 

asked herself in a wild attempt to gather her 

scattered senses. In vain she endeavored to re- 

211 


212 The Secret Mark 

call the name of the street she was on at that 
moment. Her efforts to recall the route she 
had taken in getting there were quite as futile. 

“ Wish I were in Chicago,” she breathed. 
“ The very worst of it is better than this. 
There at least I have friends somewhere. Here 
I have none anywhere. Wish Florence were 
here.” * ' |JS| 

At that she caught herself up; there was no 
use in* wishing for things that could not be. 
The question was, what did she intend to do? 
Was she to seek out a hotel and spend the night 
there, to resume her search for the first person 
in America who had sold the ancient copy of 
the Angler, or was she to take the first train 
back to Chicago? She had a feeling that she 
had seen the man she sought and that weeks of 
search might not reveal him again; yet she dis¬ 
liked going back to Frank Morrow with so little 
to show for his hundred dollars invested. 

“ Anyway,” she said at last with a shudder, 
“ Fve got to get out of here. Boo! it seems 
like the very depths of the slums! ” 


213 


A Theft In the Night 

She started on at a brisk pace. Having gone 
a half block she faced about suddenly; she 
fancied she heard footsteps behind her. She 
saw nothing but an empty street. 

“ Nerves,” she told herself. “ I've got to get 
over that. I know what’s the matter with me 
though; I haven’t eaten for hours. I’ll find a 
restaurant pretty soon and get a cup of coffee.” 

There is a strange thing about our great 
cities; in certain sections you may pass a half 
dozen coffee shops and at least three policemen 
in a single block; in other sections you may go 
an entire mile without seeing either. Evidently, 
eating places, like policemen, crave company of 
their own kind. Lucile had happened upon a 
policeless and eat-shopless section of New York. 
For a full twenty minutes she tramped on 
through the fog, growing more and more cer¬ 
tain at every step that she was being followed 
by someone, and not coming upon a single per¬ 
son or shop that offered her either food or 
protection. 

Suddenly she found herself in the midst of 


214 


The Secret Mark 


a throng of people. A movie theater had dis¬ 
gorged this throng. Like a sudden flood of 
water, they surrounded her and bore her on. 
They poured down the street to break up into 
two smaller streams, one of which flowed on 
down the street and the other into a hole in the 
ground. Having been caught in the latter 
stream, and not knowing what else to do, eager 
for companionship of whatever sort, the girl 
allowed herself to be borne along and down into 
the hole. Down a steep flight of steps she w r as 
half carried, to be at last deposited on a plat¬ 
form, alongside of which in due time a train 
of electric cars came rattling in. 

“ The subway/’ she breathed. “ It will take 
me anywhere, providing I know where I want 
to go.” 

Just as she was beginning to experience a 
sense of relief from contact with this flowing 
mass of humanity she was given a sudden shock. 
To the right of her, through a narrow gap in 
the throng, she recognized a face. The gap 
closed up at once and the face disappeared, but 


215 


A Theft In the Night 

the image of it remained. It was the face of 
the man she had seen in the shop, he of the 
birthmark on his chin. 

“ No doubt of it now,” she said half aloud. 
“ He is following me.” Then, like some hunted 
creature of the wild, she began looking about 
her for a way of escape. Before her there 
whizzed a train. The moving cars came to a 
halt. A door slid open. She leaped within. 
The next instant the door closed and she was 
borne away. To what place? She could not 
tell. All she knew was that she was on her way. 

Quite confident that she had evaded her pur¬ 
suer, she settled back in her seat to fall into a 
drowsy stupor. How far she rode she could 
not tell. Having at last been roused to action 
by the pangs of hunger, she rose and left 
the car. “ Only hope there is some place to eat 
near,” she sighed. 

Again she found herself lost in a jam; the 
legitimate theaters were disgorging their crowds. 
She was at this time, though she did not know 
it, in the down town district. 


f 


216 The Secret Mark 

Her right hand was disengaged; in her left 
she carried a small leather bag. As she 
struggled through the throng, she experienced 
difficulty in retaining her hold on this bag. Of 
a sudden she felt a mighty wrench on its handle 
and the next instant it was gone. There could 
be no mistaking that sudden pull. It had been 
torn from her grasp by a vandal of some sort. 
As she turned with a gasp, she caught sight of 
a face that vanished instantly, the face of the 
man with the birthmark on his chin. 

Instantly the whole situation flashed through 
her mind; this man had been following her to 
regain possession of one or both of the books 
which at this moment reposed in her coat pocket. 
He had made the mistake of thinking these 
books were in the bag. He would search the 
bag and then — 

She reasoned no further; a car door was 
about to close. She dashed through it at immi¬ 
nent risk of being caught in the crush of its 
swing and the next instant the car whirled away. 

“ Missed him that time,” she breathed. “ He 


217 


A Theft In the Night 

will search the bag. When he discovers his mis¬ 
take it will be too late. The bird has flown. As 
to the bag, he may keep it. It contains only a 
bit of a pink garment which I can afford to do 
without, and two clean handkerchiefs.” 

Fifteen minutes later when she left the car 
she found herself in a very much calmer state 
of mind. Convinced that she had shaken herself 
free from her undesirable shadow, and fully 
convinced also that nothing now remained but 
to eat a belated supper and board the next train 
for her home city, she went about the business 
of finding out what that next train might be 
and from what depot it left. 

Fortunately, a near-by hotel office was able 
to furnish her the information needed and to 
call a taxi. A half hour later she found her¬ 
self enjoying a hot lunch in the depot and at 
the same time mentally reveling in the soft com¬ 
fort of “ LoAver 7 ” of car 36, which she was 
soon to occupy. 


CHAPTER XXII 


MANY MYSTERIES 

One might have supposed that, considering 
she was now late into the night of the most 
exacting and exciting day of her whole life, 
Lucile, once she was safely stowed away in her 
berth on the train, would immediately fall 
asleep. This, however, was not the case. Her 
active brain was still at work, still struggling 
to untangle the many mysteries that, during the 
past weeks, had woven themselves into what 
seemed an inseparable tangle. So, after a half 
hour of vain attempt to sleep, she sat bolt up¬ 
right in her berth and snapped on the light, 
prepared if need be to spend the few remaining 
hours of that night satisfying the demands of 
that irreconcilable mind of hers. 

The train had already started. The heavy 

green curtains which hid her from the little 

218 


219 


Many Mysteries 

outside world about her waved gently to and 
fro. Her white arms and shoulders gleamed 
in the light. Her hair hung tumbled in a 
mass about her. As the train took a curve, 
she was swung against the hammock in which 
her heavy coat rested. Her bare shoulder 
touched something hard. 

“ The books/' she said. “ Wonder what my 
new acquirement is like?” 

She drew the new book from her pocket and, 
brushing her hair out of her eyes, scanned it 
curiously. 

“ French,” she whispered. “ Very old French 
and hard to read.” As she thumbed the pages 
she saw quaint woodcuts of soldiers and offi¬ 
cers. Here was a single officer seated im¬ 
pressively upon a horse; here a group of soldiers 
scanning the horizon; and there a whole bat¬ 
talion charging a very ancient fieldpiece. 

“ Something about war,” she told herself. 
“ That's about all I can make out.” She was 
ready to close the book when her eye was caught 
by an inscription written upon the fly leaf. 


220 


The Secret Mark 


“ Looks sort of distinguished/’ she told her¬ 
self. “ Shouldn’t wonder if the book were 
valuable because of that writing if for nothing 
else.” In this surmise she was more right than 
she knew. 

She put the book carefully away but was 
unable to banish the questions which the sight 
of it had brought up. Automatically her mind 
went over the incidents which had led up to 
this precise moment. She saw the child in the 
university library, saw her take down the book 
and flee, saw her later in the mystery cottage 
on Tyler street. She fought again the battle 
with the hardened foster mother of the child 

and again endured the torturing moments in 

\ 

that evil woman’s abode. She thought of the 
mysterious person who had followed her and 
had saved her from unknown terrors by noti¬ 
fying the police. Had that person been the 
same as he who had followed her this very 
night in an attempt to regain possession of the 
two books? No, surely not. She could not 
conceive of his doing her an act of kindness. 


221 


Many Mysteries 

She thought of the person who had followed 
them to the wall of the summer cottage out 
at the dunes and wondered vaguely if he could 
have been the same person who had followed 
them on Tyler street at one time and at that 
other saved her from the clutches of the child's 
foster parents. She wondered who he could 
be. Was he a detective who had been set to 
dog her trail or was he some friend? The lat¬ 
ter seemed impossible. If he was a detective, 
how had she escaped him on this trip? Or, 
after all, had she? It gave her a little thrill to 
think that perhaps in the excitement of the day 
his presence near her had not been noticed and 
that he might at this very moment be traveling 
with her in this car. Involuntarily she seized 
the green curtains and tried to button them 
more tightly, then she threw back her head 
and laughed at herself. 

“ But how,” she asked herself, “ is all this 
tangle to be straightened out? Take that one 
little book, ‘ The Compleat Angler.' The child 
apparently stole it from Frank Morrow; I 


222 


The Secret Mark 


have it from her bv a mere accident; Frank 
Morrow has it from one New York book shop; 
that shop from another; the other from a theo¬ 
logian; he from a third book shop; and that 
shop more than likely from a thief, for if he 
would attempt to steal it from me to-night, he 
more than likely stole it in the first place and 
was attempting to get it from me to destroy my 
evidence against him. Now if the book was 
stolen in the first place and all of us have had 
stolen property in our possession, in the form 
of this book, what's going to happen to the 
bunch of us and how are we ever to square 
ourselves? Last of all,” she smiled, “ where 
does our friend, the aged Frenchman, the god¬ 
father of that precious child, come in on it? 
And what is the meaning of the secret mark? ” 

With all these problems stated and none of 
them solved, she at last found a drowsy sen¬ 
sation about to overcome her, so settling back 
upon her pillow and drawing the blankets about 
her, she allowed herself to drift off into slumber. 

The train she had taken was not as speedy 


Many Mysteries 223 

as the one which had taken her to New York. 
Darkness of another day had fallen when at 
last she recognized the welcome sound of the 
train rumbling over hollow spaces at regular 
intervals and knew that she was passing over 
the streets of her own city. Florence would 
be there to meet her. Lucile had wired her the 
time of her arrival. It certainly would seem 
good to meet someone she knew once more. 

As the train at last rattled into the heart of 
the city, she caught an unusual red glow against 
the sky. 

“ Fire somewhere,” she told herself without 
giving it much thought, for in a city of mil¬ 
lions one thinks little of a single blaze. 

It was only after she and Florence had left 
the depot that she noted again that red glow 
with a start. 

The first indication that something unusual 
was happening in that section of the city was 
the large amount of traffic which passed the 
street car they had taken. Automobiles, trucks 
and delivery cars rattled rapidly past them. 


224 


The Secret Mark 


“That’s strange!” she told herself. “The 
street is usually deserted at this time of night. 
I wonder if the fire could be over this way; but 
surely it would be out by now.” 

At last the traffic became so crowded that 
their car, like a bit of debris in a clogged stream, 
was caught and held in the middle of it all. 

“What’s the trouble?” she asked the con¬ 
ductor. 

“ Bad fire up ahead, just across the river.” 

“Across the river? Why — that’s where 
Tyler street is.” 

“Yes’m, in that direction.” 

“ Come on,” she said, seizing Florence by the 
arm; “the fire’s down toward Tyler street. I 
think we ought to try to get to the cottage if 
we can. What could that child and the old 
Frenchman do if the fire reached their cottage? 
He’d burn rather than leave his books and the 
child wouldn’t leave him; besides there are the 
books that belong to other people and that I’m 
partly responsible for. C’m’on.” 

For fifteen minuses they struggled down a 


225 


Many Mysteries 

street that was thronged with excited people. 

“ One wouldn’t believe that there could be 
such a crowd on the streets at this hour of the 
night,” panted Florence, as she elbowed her way 
forward. “ Lucile, you hang to my waist. 
We must not be separated.” 

They came to a dead stop at last. At the end 
of the river bridge a rope had been thrown 
across the street. At paces of ten feet this 
rope was guarded by policemen. None could 
pass save the firemen. 

The fire was across the river but sent forth 
a red glare that was startling. By dint of ten 
minutes of crawling Florence succeeded in se¬ 
curing for them a position against the rope. 

A large fire in a city at night is a grand 
and terrible spectacle. This fire was no excep¬ 
tion. Indeed, it was destined to become the 
worst fire the city had experienced in more than 
forty years. 

Starting in some low, ancient structures that 
lay along the river, it soon climbed to a series 
of brick buildings occupied by garment makers. 


226 


The Secret Mark 


The flames, like ted dragons' tongues, darted in 
and out of windows* With a great burst they 
leaped through a tar-covered roof to mount 
hundreds of feet in air* Burning fragments, 
all ablaze, leaped to soar away in the hot cur¬ 
rents of air. 

The firemen, all but powerless, fought bravely. 
Here a fire tower reared itself to dizzy heights 
in air. Here and there fire hose, like a thou¬ 
sand entwined serpents, writhed and twisted. 
Here a whole battery of fire engines smoked 
and there two powerful gasoline driven engines 
kept up a constant heavy throbbing. Roofs 
and walls crumbled, water tanks tottered and 
fell, steel pillars writhed and twisted in the in¬ 
tense heat, chimneys came crashing in heaps. 

The fire had all but consumed the row of 
four-story buildings. Then with a fresh dash 
of air from the lake it burst forth in earnest, a 
real and terrible conflagration. 

Lucile, as she stood there watching it, felt 
a thousand hitherto unexperienced emotions 
sweep over her. But at last she came to rest 


227 


Many Mysteries 

with one terrible fact bearing down upon her 
very soul. Tyler street was just beyond this 
conflagration. Who could tell when the fire 
would reach the mysterious tumble-down cot¬ 
tage with its aged occupant? She thought of 
something else, of the books she might long 
since have returned to their rightful owners and 
had not. 

“ Now they will burn and I will never be able 
to explain,” she told herself. “ Somehow I must 
get through! ” 

In her excitement she lifted the rope and 
started forward. A heavy hand was instantly 
laid on her shoulders. 

“ Y’ can’t go over there.” 

“ I must.” 

“Y’ can’t.” 

The policeman thrust her gently back behind 
the rope and drew it down before her. 

“ I must go,” she told herself. “ Oh, I must! 
I must! ” 


CHAPTER XXIII 


INSIDE THE LINES 

\ 

“ Come on,” Lucile said, pulling at Florence’s 
arm. “ We’ve got to get there. It must be done. 
For everything that must be done there is al¬ 
ways a way.” 

They crowded their way back through the 
throng which was hourly growing denser. It 
was distressing to catch the fragments of con¬ 
versation that came to them as they fought 
their way back. Tens of thousands of people 
were being robbed of their means of making a 
living. Each fresh blaze took the bread from 
the mouths of hundreds of children. 

“ T’wasn’t much of a job I had,” muttered an 

Irish mother with a shawl over her head, “ but 

it was bread! Bread!” “Every paper, every 

record of my business for the past ten years, 

was in my files and the office is doomed,” roared 

228 



Inside the Lines 


229 


a red-faced business man. “It’s doomed! And 
they won’t let me through.” 

kk There’s not one of them all that needs to 
get through more badly than I,” said Lucile, 
with a lump in her throat. “ Surely there must 
be a way.” 

Working their way back, the two girls hur¬ 
ried four blocks along Wells street, which ran 
parallel to the river, then turned on Madison 
to fight their way toward a second bridge. 

“ Perhaps it is open,” Lucile told Florence. 

Her hopes were short-lived. Again they faced 
a rope and a line of determined-faced police¬ 
men. 

“It just must be done!” said Lucile, set¬ 
ting her teeth hard as they again backed away. 

An alley offered freer passage than the 
street. They had passed down this but a 
short way when they came upon a ladder truck 
which had been backed in as a reserve. On it 
hung the long rubber coats and heavy black 
hats of the firemen. 

Instinctively Lucile’s hand went out for a 


230 


The Secret Mark 


coat. She glanced to right and left- She saw 
no one. The next instant she had donned that 
coat and was drawing a hat down solidly over 
her hair. 

“ I know it’s an awful thing to do,” she whis¬ 
pered, “ but I am doing it for them, not for 
myself- You may come or stay. It’s really my 
battle. I’ve got to see it through to the end. 
You always advised against going further but 
I ventured. Now it’s do or die.” 

Florence’s answer was to put out a hand and 
to grasp a fireman’s coat. The next moment, 
in this new disguise, they were away. 

Had the girls happened to look back just be¬ 
fore leaving the alley they might have surprised 
a stoop-shouldered, studious-looking man in the 
act of doing exactly as they had done, robing 
himself in fireman’s garb. 

Dressed as they now were, they found the 
passing of the line a simple matter. Scores of 
fire companies and hundreds of firemen from 
all parts of the city had been called upon in 
this extreme emergency. There was much con- 


Inside the Lines 


231 


fusion. That two firemen should be passing 
forward to join their companies did not seem 
unusual The coats and hats formed a com¬ 
plete disguise. 

The crossing of the bridge was accomplished 
on the run. They reached the other side in the 
nick of time, for just as they leaped upon the 
approach the great cantilevers began to rise. 
A huge freighter which had been disgorging 
its cargo into one of the basements that line 
the river had been endangered by the fire. 
Puffing and snarling, adding its bit of smoke 
to the dense, lampblack cloud which hung over 
the city, a tug was working the freighter to a 
place of safety. 

“ We’ll have to stay inside, now we’re here,” 
panted Lucile. “ There’s a line formed along 
the other approach. Here’s a stair leading down 
to the railway tracks. We can follow the tracks 
for a block, then turn west again. There’ll be 
no line there; it’s too close to the fire.” 

“ Might be dangerous,” Florence hung back. 

“ Can’t help it. It’s our chance.” Lucile was 


232 


The Secret Mark 


halfway down the stair. Florence followed and 
the next moment they were racing along a wall 
beside the railway track. 

A switch engine racing down the track with 
a line of box cars, one ablaze, forced them to 
batten themselves against the wall. There was 
someone following them, the studious boy in a 
fireman’s uniform. He barely escaped being 
run down by the engine, but when it had passed 
and thev resumed their course, he followed 
them. Darting from niche to niche, from 
shadow to shadow, he kept some distance be¬ 
hind them. 

“ Up here,” panted Lucile, racing upstairs. 

The heat was increasing. The climbing of 
those stairs seemed to double its intensity. Cin¬ 
ders were falling all about them. 

“ The wind has shifted,” Florence breathed. 
“ It — it’s going to be hard.” 

Lucile did not reply. Her throat was 

parched. Her face felt as if it were on fire. 

_ « 

The heavy coat and hat were insufferable yet 

she dared not cast them away. 


Inside the Lines 233 

So they struggled on. And their shadow, like 
all true shadows, followed. 

“Look! Oh, look!” cried Florence, reeling 
in her tracks. 

A sudden gust of wind had sent the fire 
swooping against the side of a magnificent 
building of concrete and steel. Towering aloft 
sixteen stories, it covered a full city block. 

“ It’s going,” cried Lucile as she heard the 
awful crash of glass and saw flames bursting 
from the windows as if from the open hearth 
furnace of a foundry. 

It was true. The magnificent mahogany 
desks from which great, high-salaried execu¬ 
tives sent out orders to thousands of weary 
tailors, made quite as good kindling that night 
as did some poor widow’s washboard, and they 
were given quite as much consideration by that 
bad master, fire. 

“Hurry!” Lucile’s voice was hoarse with 
emotion. “ We must get behind it, out of the 
path of the wind, or we will be burned to a 
cinder.” Catching the full force of her mean- 


234 


The Secret Mark 


ing, Florence seized Lucile’s hand and together 
they rushed forward. 

Burning cinders rained about them, a half- 
burned board came swooping down to fall in 
their very path. Twice Lucile stumbled and 
fell, but each time Florence had her on her feet 
in an instant 

“ Courage! Courage! ” she whispered. “ Only 
a few feet more and then the turn,” 

After what seemed an age they reached that 
turn and found themselves in a place where a 
bieath of night air fanned their cheeks. 

Buildings lay between them and the doomed 
executive building. The firemen were plying 
these with water. The great cement structure 
Would be completely emptied of its contents by 
the fire but it would stand there empty-eyed and 
staring like an Egyptian sphinx, 

“ It may form a fire-wall which will protect 
this and the next street,” said Florence hope¬ 
fully. “ The worst may be over.” 


CHAPTER XXIV 


SECRETS REVEALED 

On a night such as this, one does not stand 
on formalities. There was a light burning in 
the mystery cottage on Tyler street. The girls 
entered without knocking. 

The scene which struck their eyes was most 
dramatic. On a long, low couch lay the aged 
Frenchman. Beside his bed, her hair disheveled, 
her garments blackened and scorched by fire, 
knelt the child She was silently sobbing. The 
man, for all one could see, might be dead, so 
white and still did he lie. 

Yet as the girls, still dressed in great coats 
and rubber hats, stepped into the room, his eyes 
opened; his lips moved and the girls heard him 
murmur: 

“ Ah, the firemen. Now my books will burn, 

235 


236 


The Secret Mark 


the house will go. They all will burn. But 
like Montcalm at Quebec, I shall not live to see 
my defeat.” 

“ No, no, no! ” the child sprang to her feet. 
“ They must not burn! They shall not burn! ” 

“ Calm yourself,” said Lucile, advancing 
into the room and removing her coat as she did 
so. “ It is only I, your friend, Lucile. The 
fire is two blocks away and there is reason to 
hope that this part of Tyler street will be saved. 
The huge concrete building is burning out from 
within but is standing rugged as a great rock. 
It is your protection.” 

“ Ah, then I shall die happy,” breathed the 
man. 

“No! No! No!” almost screamed the child. 
“ You shall not die.” 

“ Hush, my little one,” whispered the man. 
“ Do not question the wisdom of the Almighty. 
My hour has come. Soon I shall be with my 
sires and with my sons and grandsons; with 
all the brave ones who have so nobly defended 
our beloved France. 


Secrets Revealed 


237 


“ And as for you, my little one, you have 
here two friends and all my books. It is in the 
tin box behind the books, my will. I have no 
living kin. I have made you my heir. The 
books are worth much money. You are well 
provided for. Your friends here will see that 
they are not stolen from you, will you not? ” 

Florence and Lucile, too touched to trust 
themselves to speak, bowed their heads. 

“ As for myself,” the man went on in a hoarse 
whisper, “ I have but one regret. 

“ Come close,” he beckoned to Lucile. “ Come 
very close. I have something more to tell you.” 

Lucille moved close to him, something seeming 
to say to her, “ Now you are to hear the gar¬ 
goyle’s secret.” 

“ Not many days ago,” he began, “ I told 
you some of my life, but not all. I could not. 
My heart was too sore. Now I wish to tell you 
all. You remember that I said I took my books 
to Paris. That is not quite true. I started with 
all of them but not all arrived. One box of 
them, the most precious of all, was stolen while 


238 


The Secret Mark 


on the way and a box of cheap and worthless 
books put in its place. 

“ Heartbroken at this loss, I traced the rob¬ 
bers as best I could at last to find that the 
books had been carried overseas to America. 

“ I came to America. They had been sold, 
scattered abroad. The thief eluded me, but the 
books I could trace. By the gargoyle in the cor¬ 
ner and by the descriptions of dealers in rare 
books, I located many of them. 

“ Those who had them had paid handsomely 
for them. They would not believe an old man’s 
story. They would not give them up. 

“ I brought suit in the courts. It was no 
use. No one would believe me. 

“ Young lady,” the old man’s voice all but 
died away as his feeble fingers clutched at the 
covers, “ young lady, every man has some wish 
which he hopes to fulfill. He may desire to 

become rich, to secure power, to write a book, 

# 

to paint a great picture. There is always some¬ 
thing. As for me, I wished but one thing, a 
very little thing: to die with the books, those 


s 


Secrets Revealed 


239 


precious volumes I had inherited. The foolish 
wish of a childish old man, perhaps, but that 
was my wish. The war has taken my family. 
They cannot gather by my bedside; I have only 
my books. And, thanks to this child,” he at¬ 
tempted to place his hand on the child’s bowed 
head, “ thanks to her, there are but few missing 
at this, the last moment. 

For a little there was silence in the room, 
then the whisper began again, this time more 
faint: 

“ Perhaps it was wrong, the way I taught the 
child to get the books. But they were really 
my own. I had not sold one of them. They 
were all my own. She knows where they came 
from. When I am gone, if that is the way of 
America, they may all be returned.” 

Lucile hesitated for a moment, then bent over 
the dying man. 

“ The books,” she whispered. “ Were two 
of them very small ones?” 

The expression on the dying man’s face grew 
eager as he answered, “ Yes, yes, very small 


240 


The Secret Mark 


and very rare. One was a book about fishing 
and the other — ah, that one! — that was the 
rarest of all. It had been written in by the 
great Napoleon and had been presented by 
him to one of his marshals, my uncle.” 

Lucile’s hand came out from behind her back. 
In it were two books. 

“ Are these the ones?” she asked. 

“ Yes, yes,” he breathed hoarsely. “ Those are 
the very most precious ones. I die — I die 
happy.” 

For a second the glassy eyes stared, then 
lighted up with a smile that was beautiful to 
behold. 

“ Ah! ” he breathed, “ I am happy now, 

/ 

happy as when a child I played beneath the 
grapevines in my own beloved France.” 

Those were his last words. A moment later, 
Lucile turned to lead the silently weeping child 
into another room. As she did so, she en¬ 
countered a figure standing with bowed head. 

It was the studious looking boy who had 
donned the fireman’s coat and followed them. 


Secrets Revealed 


241 


“Harry Brock! 1 ’ she whispered. “ How did 
you come here ? ” 

“ I came in very much the same manner that 
you came,” he said quietly. “ I have been 
where you have been many times of late. I 
did not understand, but I thought you needed 
protection and since I thought of myself as the 
best friend you had among the men at the uni¬ 
versity, I took that task upon myself. I have 
been in this room, unnoticed, for some time. I 
heard what he said and now I think I under¬ 
stand. Please allow me to congratulate you and 
— and to thank you. You have strengthened 
my faith in — in all that is good and beautiful.” 

He stepped awkwardly aside and allowed her 
to pass. 


CHAPTER XXV 


BETTER DAYS 

There was no time for explanations that 
night. The fire had been checked; the cottage 
and the rare books were safe, but there were 
many other things to be attended to. It was 
several days before Lucile met Harry Brock 
again and then it was by appointment, in the 
Cozy Corner Tea Room. 

Her time during the intervening days was 
taken up with affairs relating to her new charge, 
the child refugee, Marie. She went at once to 
Frank Morrow for advice. He expressed great 
surprise at the turn events had taken but told 
her that he had suspected from the day she 
had told the story to him that the books had 
been stolen from Monsieur Le Bon. 

“ And now we will catch the thief and if he 

242 


Better Days 243 

has money we will make him pay,” he declared 
stoutly. 

He made good his declaration. Through the 
loosely joined but powerful league of book 
sellers he tracked down the man with the birth¬ 
mark on his chin and forced him to admit the 
theft of the case of valuable books. As for 
money with which to make restitution, like most 
of his kind he had none. He could only be 
turned over to the “ Tombs ” to work out his 
atonement. 

The books taken from the university and 
elsewhere were offered back to the last pur¬ 
chasers. In most cases they returned them as 
the child’s rightful possession, to be sold to¬ 
gether with the many other rare books which 
had been left to Marie by Monsieur Le Bon. 
In all there was quite a tidy sum of money 
realized from the sale. This was put in trust 
for Marie, the income from it to be used for 
her education. 

As for that meeting of Lucile and Harry in 
the tea room, it was little more than a series of 


'244 


The Secret Mark 


exclamations on the part of one or the other 
of them as they related their part in the mys¬ 
terious drama. 

“ And you followed us right out into the 
country that night we went to the Ramsey cot¬ 
tage?” Lucile exclaimed. 

“ Yes, up to the wall,” Harry admitted. “ The 
water stopped me there.” 

“ And it was you who told the police I was 
in danger when that terrible man and woman 
locked me in?” 

Harry bowed his assent. 

He related how night after night, without 
understanding their strange wanderings, he had 
followed the two girls about as a sort of body¬ 
guard. 

When Lucile thought how many sleepless 
nights it had cost him, her heart was too full 
for words. She tried to thank him. Her lips 
would not form words. 

“But don’t you see,” he smiled; “you were 
trying to help someone out of her difficulties 
and I was trying to help you. That’s the way 


Better Days 245 

the whole world needs to live, I guess, if we are 
all to be happy.” 

Lucile smiled and agreed that he had ex¬ 
pressed it quite correctly, but down deep in her 
heart she knew that she would never feel quite 
the same toward any of her other fellow stu¬ 
dents as she did toward him at that moment. 
And so their tea-party ended. 

Frank Morrow insisted on the girls’ accept¬ 
ing the two-hundred-dollar reward. There were 
two other rewards which had been offered for 
the return of missing books, so in the end Lucile 
and Florence found themselves in a rather bet¬ 
ter financial state. 

As for Marie, she was taken into the practice 
school of the university. By special arrange¬ 
ment she was given a room in the ladies’ dormi¬ 
tory. It was close to that of her good friends, 
Lucile and Florence, so she was never lonely, 
and in this atmosphere which was the world she 
was meant to live in she blossomed out like a 
flower in the spring sunshine. 



4 



I 




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